Kevin Durant sits down with Draymond Green

Summary

Payne & Pendergast – July 22, 2026 Episode Summary

Main Theme:
This episode covers a diverse range of Houston sports topics, anchored by in-depth Texans analysis (preseason optimism, defensive outlook, schedule breakdown), a Rockets culture segment using insights from Kevin Durant's recent appearance on Draymond Green’s podcast, and a humorous detour into national park bison attacks.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Texans Preseason: Hype, Caution, and Swarm Mentality

Timestamp: 01:05 – 13:03

• Texans’ “Swarm Mentality” & Roster Assessment:

  • Discussion centers on whether the Texans’ strong emphasis on intangible qualities (“swarm mentality”—work ethic, relentless mindset) might blind them to actual on-field performance.
  • Damian Pierce used as case study for a player who had all the “swarm” intangibles but didn’t produce after his rookie year.
  • Seth: “I like that term, Swarm blinded. When the Texans Cut Downs to 53, are there any guys that make the roster where I'm like, they're a little swarm blinded?” (05:29)
  • Sean adds caution: “You gotta always check yourself… yeah, you can check off all those boxes in terms of intangibles, but… you gotta also produce.” (06:00)

• National Media Consensus: Unusual Optimism

  • NFL Network panel unanimously predicts Texans to exceed their 9.5 win total; individual predictions range from 10-13 wins.
  • Hosts express nervousness about groupthink and the dangers of universal optimism.
  • Seth: “When you see seven experts in one exercise all pick the Texans to go over nine and a half wins, all of them… I get nervous when I see stuff like this.” (09:01)
  • Sean: “If you have a season win total of 11 or more, you're an elite football team.” (08:05)

• Defense as Foundation and Outlier

  • Texans’ defense considered uniquely stable due to consistent coaching and returning players; rare for defensive performance to be so predictable year-over-year.
  • Discussion of possible risks (mainly injuries) but skepticism that opposing teams can “figure out” the system due to high execution.

• Schedule Analysis: High-Profile Home Games

  • The first month features matchups against Bills, Bengals, Colts (away), and Cowboys.
  • Sean hypes the home environment: “This is big for the crowd itself. It is a difficult place to play… By week one, it will be officially renamed Reliant Stadium.” (15:34)
  • Longstanding “Bills in Houston” subplot: Recap of Josh Allen’s struggles at NRG Stadium adds anticipation to the opener.

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2. Strategic Implications of Early Season Results

Timestamp: 13:17 – 25:49

• The Value of Strong Start
  • The opening four games (vs. Bills, Bengals, at Colts, vs. Cowboys) are viewed as a crucial test.
  • Seth: “My feeling is not just three and one in the first four. I think they need to go five and two in the first seven because of what the back end of the schedule looks like.” (24:50)
• Playoff Implications
  • Winning the opener against Buffalo is positioned as especially meaningful for AFC tiebreakers and seeding.

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3. Deep Dive: The Kevin Durant–Draymond Green Podcast & Houston Rockets Culture

Timestamp: 26:11 – 34:56

• Durant Reflects on Warriors Exit
  • Durant tells Draymond their conflict wasn’t as much about the argument itself, but about how management sidestepped the fallout:
    • Durant (audio, via Draymond Green pod):
      “…It wasn't the argument. It was the way that everybody—Steve Kerr acted like it didn't happen… I really felt like that was such a big situation for us as a group… I don't think we did that [process it]. We tried to dance around it. I just didn't like how all of that—just the vibe—just made it weird to me.” (27:29)
• Applying Durant’s Comments to the Rockets (Burner Gate)
  • Hosts speculate about how the Rockets internally managed the fallout from Durant’s social media burner controversy.
  • Seth: “They did not play like a team that squashed whatever these issues are. They didn't look like a team, didn't seem to act like a team.” (29:01)
  • Discussion about player leadership and accountability, with both expressing skepticism that Durant will be a vocal, culture-setting presence in Houston.
  • Seth: “We know we're not getting somebody that is this chemistry leader force multiplier…” (30:08)
• Blame and Player Agency
  • Both laugh at players deflecting blame onto management after locker room conflicts.
  • Sean: “That’s what those are like—your two veteran players should be able to figure this stuff out… If you're going to have a veteran-led team, you should be able to figure this out.” (34:00)

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4. Rockets Roster Philosophy: Run It Back or Make a Move?

Timestamp: 36:39 – 38:41

• Hosts discuss an article arguing for roster continuity, with a healthy Fred VanVleet as a substantial positive—echoing earlier optimism for the Rockets’ young core.
• Seth admits he’s “in acceptance” and ready to believe in the team’s current core for the coming season.

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5. Viral News: Bison Attack Survival Story

Timestamp: 39:33 – 48:28

• Recap of the viral story of Carl Eisen McDaniel, a 75-year-old man who survived being tossed by a bison in Yellowstone while trying to protect his grandson.
  • Audio clip, McDaniel: “Even though I was on the ground, he could have stomped me. He could have gored me, could have done anything… That target happened to be me.” (41:28)
• Sean is impressed by McDaniel’s resilience and unexpected youthful voice.
• Amusing stats and talk about bison attack survival rates and common misconceptions about Yellowstone wildlife.

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6. Sports Injury Sidebar: Baseball and Football Pain

Timestamp: 48:33 – 51:26

• Brief discussion of a baseball player’s ruptured testicle incident and a lighthearted football locker room story from Seth.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Swarm Mentality vs. Talent:

  • Sean: “You can have a swarmy attitude, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you look swarmy on the field.” (01:43)

• Texans Hype Caution:

  • Seth: “Everybody’s on one side.…I get nervous when I see stuff like this.” (09:36)

• Durant’s Leadership Style:

  • Seth: “We know we're not getting somebody that is this chemistry leader force multiplier…” (30:08)

• Fan Experience:

  • Sean: “The crowd has such a big effect on that game and they can make it as miserable as absolutely possible for Josh Allen and the Bills fans…” (16:30)

• Viral Story – Bison Survivor:

  • Carl Eisen McDaniel: “He just kept coming, and he was more aggressive. And as soon as he got off that tree, he launched me in the air.” (42:17)

• Sean’s Football Story:

  • Sean (on a locker room scramble): “That’s not a football… That’s a flaccid forearm. Then I was like… forearms aren’t typically flaccid… And I let go. The person I was doing to... he thought I did it intentionally.” (50:33)

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Breakdown by Major Segments (w/ Timestamps)

| Topic | Key Points | Start | End | |---------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------|--------|--------| | Texans: Swarm Mentality and Roster Cuts | Intangibles vs. performance, “swarm blinded”, Pierce | 01:05 | 07:00 | | National Media Hype, Schedule & Defense | NFLN picks, Vegas line, schedule, defense stability | 07:00 | 13:17 | | Schedule Focus: Early Challenges | Home crowd impact, AFC tiebreakers | 13:17 | 25:49 | | Durant & Draymond Podcast Discussion | Warriors conflict, leadership, culture, Rockets links | 26:11 | 34:56 | | Rockets Offseason Philosophy | Article debate, VanVleet’s importance | 36:39 | 38:41 | | Viral Bison Attack Story | Account from survivor, wilderness lessons | 39:33 | 48:28 | | Sports Injury Anecdotes | Baseball & football injury stories | 48:33 | 51:26 |

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Overall Tone & Takeaways

• Tone: A mix of analytical, humorous, and candid, with Sean and Seth’s familiar blend of football insight and locker-room banter.
• Houston Focus: Texans optimism is grounded by reminders not to get swept up in hype; Rockets analysis is personal, skeptical, and informed by past leadership stories.
• Memorable Segment: The juxtaposition of pro sports culture and a “man vs. bison” story gives the episode a signature local talk radio flavor.

This summary captures the episode’s core sports discussions and pops of personality, offering Houston fans and curious new listeners a rich, lively recap.

Transcript

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[Sports Analyst Sean]

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[Sports Analyst Seth]

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[Sports Analyst Seth]

place Sports Radio 610 presents Payne and Pendergast okay, we'll get to the question that I asked as the tease here. The, the. The consensus opinion on the Texans in just a second. We talked about the tight ends at 625. That was the question. Question number six in our countdown to Texans training camp was what do we think the tight end room looks like? This texter uses a term that I kind of like, oh, are the Texans swarm blinded? Oh my gosh, Stover.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

They're just too blinded by the swarm.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Like Damian Pierce makes the team because he possesses the qualities of the swarm mentality.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Well, I think this is the thing about being swarmy. You can have a swarmy attitude, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you've. You look swarmy on the field. And I don't like. There's nothing about Cade Stover in his first couple of years where I felt like, oh hell yeah.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Right.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

That's the kind of. Yeah, I don't. So I think they might think he's capable of being a swarmy.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

I definitely think he's capable because they've talked about him in such big terms.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

But you got to be. You got to be competent. That's one of the keys. It should be swarm special work ethic and relentless mindset and competent swarmack in a perfect world.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

I agree with you. I think bringing up Damian Pierce is an appropriate. Yeah, bring up by the texture which is like, hey, Damian Pierce had a lot of those qualities. Didn't really, after 2022, didn't really display them.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

I was.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

They kept him around for two more years.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

The biggest thing.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Swarm blinded.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

And, you know, you and I, through a couple of training camps, I told you it was tough. And it was tough in the. In the preseason games because, all right, there was times where it looked like I didn't think Damian was necessarily reading the. The blocking all that well or seeing the field all that well, but he also didn't have good blocking in front of him. That's really dicey for a running back. The thing that concerned me the most about Damian that I could see in. In training camp practices was that for a guy whose calling card was breaking tackles, he was on the ground a lot. Just when guys were thudding him up, he was on the ground. And, you know, he had lost weight from his rookie year, which is cool. He looked quicker and all that. But I think we were talking about this with baseball earlier. Some guys, some power hitters especially, they just. That they've got their ideal body weight where it's. They're a little chunky. Like some guys. It's not as simple as, wow, if you lose ten pounds, you'll be that much quicker and everything. Some guys just have to be the right body weight. And for Damian, I felt like whenever. Once he got more slender after his rookie year, he was just. He didn't break tackles, and that's being a little bit faster. When speed isn't. Your calling card isn't worth it if you're losing your superpower and your calling card, which is breaking tackles. Yeah. Like, this happened for two straight years. First in 2023, it was that Damian was the feature back early in the season, and it wasn't working. And it took his injury to realize, okay, we got to move on. And. And then last year, I thought the same thing. They just, they.

[Caller or Guest]

They.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

They still believed in him more than he had really shown since. Really since the first part of his rookie season. People forget that. That his rookie year, it was awesome. But then before he got injured, there was a couple of games, at least a couple of games where he was averaging 2 yards per carry, you know, and it was a bad team. Yeah.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

And that's where it's tough with running backs, same way it is with quarterbacks. How do you separate the blocking from the actual running back performance?

[Sports Analyst Seth]

He's on the Eagles now. I think Damian is, because my aunt texted me like, two or three months ago. Damian had he at one point signed with the Eagles. You never know what happens through OTAs and minicamp with guys that are fringe guys. And he's a fringe guy now. He's a guy trying to make a team. And she's like, well, tell me about this Damian Pierce. I'm like, it's very complicated, Aunt Barb. Yeah, it's very complicated. Not because Damian's a bad guy or anything. He's one of the greatest guys ever.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

But he was. He was a. He was a shining star his rookie year, and then it just never came back.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

And then there's an element.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Might have been a little swarm blinded.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

And in certain types of. And the thing is, he's a guy that. He wants to be able to see the hole run through the hole. And that's. That's hard in modern football. You know, that, that things are a little bit more hazy than that usually. And if you put a guy in who's only good with certain types of run plays, it gets pretty damn easy for the defense to figure out what they need to defend.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yep.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

And like his, his inability to kind of see the field is what they were hoping was going to click at some point and just never clicked for him.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

I'm going to keep an eye out. Texter. I like that term, Swarm blinded. When the Texans Cut Downs to 53, are there any guys that make the roster where I'm like, they're a little sworn blinded with this.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Was there anybody? Well, it's always that, that mix in.

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[Sports Analyst Sean]

Whenever you try to emulate the way Belichick did it, you know, Belichick did a really good job with the guys that were unheralded in terms of their athleticism or what have you. You know, the Julian Edelman's of the world that people start like falling in love with that concept, but you gotta always check yourself and be like, all right, yeah, you can check off all those boxes in terms of the intangibles and everything else, but like, at the end of the day, you gotta. You gotta also produce.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

And they, they fall in.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

You. It's good to be concerned about the process more than results, et cetera, et cetera, but you always have to check yourself that like, all right, you gotta execute the process properly.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah. The final score matters. All right, so the NFL Network did an exercise last week where they, they took a cross section of their. Of seven of their experts, all of whom I think are still with the company after yesterday, after the, the. The layoffs. And they, they gave Their predictions on records for the various teams around the league, including the Houston Texans. So this follows a trend that I've seen this offseason with the Texans, where ironically, in a postseason where their quarterback completely collapsed in a game against New England, it is hard to find a negative opinion on the Houston Texans right now.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

At least. Yeah, there's nobody. At least I haven't seen anybody of notes saying, boy, the Texans are poised for a collapse because of their quarterback. Yeah, it's a lot of man, the Texans are a good team. And it's just a matter of, okay, how good can C.J. stroud be to. To make them an actually elite team?

[Sports Analyst Seth]

So these seven experts, you would think amongst, you know, people that, you know, don't have a vested interest in the Texans, that there would be at least one or two dissenting opinions. And I need to point out that the Vegas season win total for The Texans is nine and a half. Yeah, it's nine and a half. So the over. Under nine and a half.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

It's nine and a half. But they're, they're currently favored in 13 games.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Right.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

And I think that's where. When people go through the exercise and you're trying to figure it out, that's what you. Cause I did that, too. I'm like, all right, like, realistic, like nine and a half. I know people think that. Oh, that's like an insult or something. No, it's, it's really. You gotta be really, like, really, really good to, to get, you know, more than ten and a half wins.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Oh.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

If you have preseason projection, if you

[Sports Analyst Seth]

have a season win total of 11 or more, you're an elite football team.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Right. And. And yet when you go through the, when you go through the game by game odds. Yeah, they're favored in 13 games. And they all make sense.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

They all make sense.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Obviously they're going to lose some of those, you know, and that's why we

[Sports Analyst Sean]

have a win or two or three. Yep.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yep. You steal one or two.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

The Bills, the. Them being underdogs against the Bills, that's the only one that rankles me.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

And that may change between now and the start of the season. We'll see. You know, and obviously, injuries can change a lot of things. This is, this is where I start to get nervous when I see it done empirically like this. It's one thing to see like, oh, Nate Tice did a video picking the Texans to go to the Super Bowl. You know, Dan Orlofsky's really like the Texans over the last few Years. I'm sure he said nice things about them. I'm just cherry picking individual examples. When you see one person saying nice things like, oh, that's nice. When you see seven experts in one exercise all pick the Texans to go over nine and a half wins. All of them.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

The win total is designed to get people's opinions landing on both sides of the aisle. And these are, these are NFL Network people, you know, other than Lance Zurline is one of them. He lives here in Houston and he likes the Texans. He's the only one, I would say. And I don't think Lance makes his predictions based on a bias or anything like that. But there's two Colleen Wolf and Nick Shook that pick them 10 and 7. There's three, Lance, Grant Gordon and Brooks Saracemo, who picked them 11 and 6. Your guy Bucky Brooks has them going 12 and 5 and Dan Parr has them going 13 and 4. I get nervous when I see stuff like this.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Okay.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Everybody's on one side.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

You know what, though?

[Sports Analyst Seth]

They're gamblers.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

They're all on one side. I think, though, that there is an element with the Texans and this team specifically is the. They've been, they've been in the preseason. They've been nine and a half the last couple of years.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yes.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

And the defense has been really, really impressive. Last year it was really good. And they bring back all their starters, plus add a couple guys to the mix. Defensively, I think it's more of a. It's usually what, what a lot of people with the nerdy types will tell you is man defense fluctuates from year to year, but there are exceptions to that. Like, it's harder to predict that a team's going to have a good defense consistently they. Than it is if you've got a really good quarterback and you get the same guys come back if you have

[Sports Analyst Seth]

a really good quarterback.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah, it's easier to predict that they're going to consistently be a good passing offense. Yeah, I think with the Texans defense, they're, they're one of those outliers that. Because of the consistency, because d', Ameco, Ryan's and the defensive coordinator remain the same. You got all the personnel coming back and they, and they had the record they did last year that it just, it's, it feels like it's, it's more stable that they should win more than nine and a half games. But there's only, I mean, there's only two people out of seven here, eight here, that picked 12 wins or more.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

So, I mean, that they're in that range. Yeah. I think, like, it's a. It's a show of respect to d' Ameco and the defense in the fact that they weren't a horrendous offense last year. They were a very mediocre offense, but they weren't a horrendous offense that. I think that in the regular season, that's where people are looking at them. It's. It's a vote of confidence for the defense.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

What if. Okay, that's. That's interesting. If this defense were to backslide this year, and I don't think. I think there's a floor on how far they could backslide.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

But I think everybody around football thinks the floor for this defense. Healthy. Is like a top three defense. Is. Is. Are injuries the only thing that can short circuit this defense? Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

And, you know, there's one. The other thing that people might say is that, all right, the Texans are relatively vanilla in terms of their scheme and everything that they do. They're not as complex or ornate as a guy like a Vic Fangio, and that sometimes over time that you feel like, okay, people start to get a beat on you. I don't worry about that with the Texans because they've already. They've already been through that part of it. They get by because they execute really well, they're really well coached. They've got the players that fit the scheme and all of the potential weaknesses and everything about the way they operate. Like, it's already known. If, like, if you go to Pete Carroll back with a legion of boom. Now Pete Carroll was even more just, we're going to line up and play. You know, we're going to play cover three all the time. Or just like. Which is an exaggeration. But the. Where it started to fall off is when they started to lose some of the personnel. You know, it's okay to show your hand and to be somewhat predictable as long as you execute really well. So. But for this year, I'm not worried about that. That's a problem for two and three years from now, if they have to. If they can't retain both Kaylin Bullock and Kamari Lasseter and those types of

[Sports Analyst Seth]

issues, I. I got super stoked for the first month of the season when you and I were talking about it the last couple days for the. For this defense, like the challenge of those first four games. Yeah, this defense is going to be one of the most fun things to look forward to throughout training camp. For those who don't have the schedule committed to memory. Home for the Bills, home for the Bengals at Indianapolis, Home for the Cowboys, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow and then skip ahead to dak Prescott.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

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[Sports Analyst Sean]

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[Sports Analyst Seth]

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[Sports Analyst Sean]

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[Sports Analyst Sean]

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[Sports Analyst Seth]

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[Sports Analyst Sean]

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[Sports Analyst Seth]

apply of those games at home. And then as you pointed out yesterday, if Daniel Jones is healthy and that Colts offense gets the same groove going early in the season this season that they did last season, that's a at least offensively, that's like a first four games in terms of the challenge of like the O' Brien Covid 2020 season. Yeah, when the Texans opened the season and that was more of just a general overall team versus team challenge. But that season we looked at the schedule to start the season and we were like oh crap. Like they might go oh and four. And they did. And Bill o' Brien got fired because it was the Chiefs on the road. It was the Ravens at home with Lamar coming off his MVP his first MVP season. It was the Steelers in Pittsburgh back before Ben Roethlisberger became a complete geriatric. And then the Minnesota Vikings here. Yeah. And we were like, wow, they could go 04. And sure enough, they went 04.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

This is what I like about the opening those first three home games. This is, this is big for the crowd itself. It is a. This is a difficult place to play by. By week one, it will be officially renamed Reliance Stadium.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yep.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Is it yet? I think it's August 1st or something.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Whatever it is.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

The World cup stepped in and Houston Stadium.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah, they're gonna, they're Right now, they're still like peeling tape off of logos and everything in the stadium because all the branding stuff that FIFA did. Yeah, the. So it's a hard place for quarterbacks to play. We know that because Josh Allen has had some of his worst games of his career at NRG Stadium. They face, they face Josh Allen. The home crowd I'm talking about.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

So the home crowd. And I'll be out in the stands for some of the parts of these games I'm not allowed to cheer when I'm in the press box. I'm allowed to scream my face off when I'm down in the, down in the stands.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yep.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

So you've got Josh Allen, you've got Joe Burrow, you've got Dak Prescott at home three times in the first four weeks.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yes.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

That like, that's how fun is that? The noise, the energy and everything. Where at the beginning of the season your every emotions are running high. That Bills game is just critical in terms of just people who might let go of the rope early or something if there's a disappointing performance. The crowd has such a big effect on that game and they can make it as miserable as absolutely possible for Josh Allen and the Bills fans who are increasingly reluctant even to come to Houston anymore because it's like people in Buffalo, Sean, you know, I'm, I'm from that area. I know Bill's fans.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yes.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Loathsome people, but they're related to me and they don't like the idea of going to you. My brother in law who travels to a lot of Bills games, he's like, I'm not going down there.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Not a small sorry set.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

I see you enough, Seth. I don't know. I don't need to go watch my team get destroyed.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

No. And the way, the way, the way the Bills have played spanned it. It's. It's spanned the entirety of Josh Allen's career.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

He Came here as a rookie and he got replaced in that game. Came here in a playoff game, got shut down in the second half of that game.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

And then we almost made a classic young Josh Allen mistake in that game. Remember when he tried to lateral it? It could have been a disaster.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

I do. And then the big thing is the last two years because we still. There's still so much connective tissue on both. Last year.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Last year was the second worst game he's played as a pro.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

By some metrics, it was bad.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

That was a Kalyn Bullock game.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Now, the thing is, DJ Moore, like, they're. They're putting a lot on DJ Moore. Yes, they're putting a lot on DJ Moore. And Joe Brady, the offensive Joe Brady. Joe Brady is somehow acting like now that he's the head coach that there's going to be something different with the offense, despite him being the offensive coordinator. So I don't know how heavy handed Sean McDermott was when. When Sean McDermott was telling Joe Brady how to operate. Remember that story about Joe Brady went to Keon Coleman and said, me, me becoming. Me being your head coach is the best thing for you. Oh, yeah. All right, well, how about you being his offensive coordinator?

[Sports Analyst Seth]

It was weird.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

What the hell are you talking about?

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah, like, oh, so it's. Everything's changing.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

I started thinking about too, the way you and I were looking at the first four games and we were going through an exercise like, okay, if they were to go three and one in the first four games, but the football gods let you pick who they lose to. And I put up a poll and most people said the Bengals because that's the one that's got the least emotion attached to it. I would say if I could pick the one I least want to lose, it might be the Bills that I least want to lose. Like, I might want to lose less to the Bills than even the Colts in the division and the Cowboys being Dallas be. And here's why. Two reasons. One, I just don't want to lose the opener. I just don't want to be Owen one again. Yeah, they've been owing one to start two of three d' Amico seasons his first season and then. And last year and that was an Owen. Three was miserable, but oh, and one, I don't want to start Owen one. The other thing is if the Texans are what all these NFL Network people are, not all, but most of them think they can be or what most Texan fans hope they can be, like a 13 win team.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

The tiebreakers you're talking about have less to do with the division and more to do with your standing in the conference. In other words, we know the Bills are going to be a good team like the Bills are going to be at minimum, if Josh Allen is healthy. They're a 12 and 5 football team at a minimum. There's a reason why they're the favorite out of the AFC to get to the Super Bowl. I believe they're the favorite, if not their second favorite behind maybe Baltimore or somebody ironically, probably not New England, who actually made the super bowl last year. Maybe Denver's in the mix, but the Bills are among the top three or four teams to make the super bowl if, if the Texans are who we hope they are. And that would be a team that's fighting for a one or a two seed.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah, you're.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

You should be more worried about your head to head with the Bills than you are your head to head with the Bengals or certainly the Cowboys. In the nfc, the head to head with them means nothing.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Or even the Colts. And I know people are going to say, well, that's a head to head in the division. Don't you have to win the division first? Sure, you got to win the division first. But the fact of the matter is, if the Texans are going to get to a Super Bowl, I felt strongly held. The Texans are just going to get to a conference title game. They've never done that before. They've got to be a one or a two seed, in my opinion. They've got to be sure that they're playing that divisional round game at home. Enough of going on the road in the division.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Well, and you go back to. All right, the strength of this team as of now is the defense. And where is the defense like the defense. The defense is a big. What you get out of this defense at home in that environment, especially because it's your pass rush that makes really everything tick. I think you gained just so much more of an advantage there even than from the quarterback and passing game side of things, being in a, in an advantageous environment at home, that your superpower as a team gets amplified when you're playing at home.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yes.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

And it does. It aside for all the conventional reasons that your quarterback is better off playing at home and the weather elements and everything, that makes it a lot easier for CJ Stroud to not do whatever the hell that.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Well, they play two home playoff games under d' Amico Ryan's and they both been blowouts. Yeah, they both been blowouts. And the Crowd and the crowd.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

They were hinged on the defense, really. Like the offense got off the slow starts in both those blowouts. It was defensive. It was. It was big plays by the defense that really. Well, especially in the Browns game.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Well, the Browns game was the closeout. They had the two pick sixes in the second half.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah, that's what I mean. Like, it was. Oh, the other blowouts. Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

So, yeah. The other thing about the Bills is just that there's so many things about that defense that are going to present. It's physically not as big a challenge as the Bengals will probably be, but the Bills have a brand new defensive coordinator in Jim Leonard. Jim Leonard does. He comes by way of the Broncos and they do a lot of funky stuff. They're probably going to blitz a lot. They're going to be a lot different than your normal Bills defense from the last few years, and there's not going to be any film on them. You know, like, so. So this offensive line, at the beginning of last year, the offensive line was doing all those same old things where they had a hard time sorting things out. CJ Trying to run the show and being involved in pass protections and everything. There's going to be a lot of mental challenges and facing that brand new defense that you don't have any film on that might be best solved by just saying, all right, we got to be able to bash these guys in the mouth.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Do you think they're watching a lot of old Jim Leonard film from other places?

[Sports Analyst Sean]

I mean, the coaches. The coaches, the players. It's trickier. Like, it's. That's. It's a week one sucks with that because you're. You're trying to prepare for the individuals and the guys you're going to play. But when it comes to scheme, like you watch a bunch of Broncos film and like there's a disconnect. And also you don't know how much Jim Leonard's going to take from that with different personnel. So is that week one sucks for game planning.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

So that's interesting. So the ambush factor in week one probably favors the Bills over the.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah, yeah. Because they have more chance. Like Joe Brady. We know Joe Brady's been the offensive coordinator. He's maybe going to put his own flavor on things. But yeah, the defensive side of the ball is going to be a complete unknown, especially when you face teams that blitz a lot and do a lot of funky stuff. They're probably going to be pretty vanilla in the preseason and not show a lot of that. You're not the. Nobody plays their starters anymore. So, yeah, you go into that game and Nick Kaylee really has to. They've got to be prepared to pivot multiple different directions depending on what they see.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Couple texts to the text line here. 3 and 1 in the first four games. Is that a little too hopeful? No.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Well, I mean, that's why, like, by the odds, that's what they're favored to be.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

They are, yeah, they're favor, they're, they're slight underdogs to the Bills. Yeah, they're favored by, they're one of only two teams that are actually favored over the Bengals this year. The Bengals are favored in 15 of their 17.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

People give a lot of credit to that off season that they had defensively. I mean, they were, they were like the, they were one of the very worst defenses in the league last year. They added a bunch of free agents. But that's always, that's Sometimes it's awesome, sometimes it's a flaming disaster.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Absolutely. But the Texans are one of two teams to be favored over. The Bengals, their favorite. I think they're favored in Indianapolis against the Colts, I think a slight favorite. And then I think they're favorable like a field goal over the Cowboys. The Texans, they, they're favored in 13 of their 17 games, and yet there's not a single game they're playing in where the spread is more than like six and a half points one way or the other. Yeah, it's a lot of coin flip games on this schedule.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

It's 100% all about just people respecting that defense and expecting to win games in close, close margin games.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yep, Absolutely. Absolutely. So, yeah, I, I, my feeling is not just three and one in the first four. I think they need to go five and two in the first seven because of what the back end of the schedule looks like in terms of how lopsided it is, road versus home, some of the venues that they're going to, the situations they're put in. In some of these games, they're playing Christmas Eve on the road on a Thursday in Philadelphia. Like that checks every box for a loss.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

If we're picking the most likely games for the Texans to lose, like if we were power ranking, most likely to win games for them, the bottom of the power rankings would be that Philly game Christmas Eve. It's on a holiday outdoors, cold weather Thursday. I don't know who they play the, I think the week before they play Jacksonville, so they'd be coming off a division game, you know, so there's an emotional part of it. So there's meant to be a letdown coming off a Jacksonville game. So, yeah, that back. They got to go five and two before the bye week. That's my opinion.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Are we scheduled to be in London for the London game? Not yet.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Not yet. We got to work on a sponsor for that.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

I think Yingling is probably your go

[Sports Analyst Seth]

to, if you're listening.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah. Like, do they have a presence in England yet?

[Sports Analyst Seth]

I don't know yet. Let's get one. Yeah, let's get one for him.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

There's one thing I know about Europeans is they love American light. They never complain about it.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Okay, shifting gears here for a second. Kevin Durant went on Draymond Green's podcast. We know the two of them haven't always gotten along. It seems like they've buried the hatchet. And actually, this cut you're about to hear, and I'm playing this. I want to look at this through a Rockets lens in a way, with Kevin Durant, but this is him and Draymond sitting down. If you recall, he and Draymond did not get along. And probably the peak of that was a game In November of 2018, early in the season, after they'd won two championships in a row. They got into a big dust up at towards the end of a game against the Clippers where they needed a basket. At the end of the game, Draymond's bringing the ball up the floor and Kevin Durant's, like, clapping and wanting the ball to go get a bucket. And Draymond just goes into business for himself, drives the lane, turns the ball over. They start yelling at each other. They're yelling on the bench at each other. They're yelling in the locker room at each other was apparently very uncomfortable, and it made for a pretty toxic setting for the rest of the year. It kind of set the table for what that relationship was going to be like. And Kevin Durant looks back and always says, that was a big reason he left Golden State to go to Brooklyn. He just, you know, it was a toxic environment. The two of them have buried the hatchet to the point where Kevin Durant sits down with Draymond Green and hashes out, this is what Golden State could have done better to not have that toxic environment between Draymond and Kevin Durant.

[Caller or Guest]

It wasn't the argument. It was the. The way that everybody. Steve Kerr act like it didn't happen. Bob Myers and tried to just discipline you and think that that would put the mask over everything. I really felt like that was such a big situation for us as a group. The first time we went through something like that, we had to get that all out. I remember watching the last dance, and when Scottie didn't go into the game, the whole team in the locker room said, scottie, that up that you did that. We needed that. We just needed to throw all of that table and say, yo, Dre. Okay. Like that up that. We even had to go through that. Let's just wipe our hands with that and go finish the task. I don't think we did that. And we tried to dance around it. I just didn't like how all of that, just the vibe between all of that, it just made weird to me. And I'd rather us be who we say we are. Family first. Communication is key. Like, we didn't show that. And that's what rubbed me the wrong way more than anything.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah. Family first. Okay. So publicly, the Rockets acted, including Kevin Durant acted like Burnergate was nonsense.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

He didn't want to get into Twitter nonsense. Right.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

So that's publicly. Yeah. Do we know internally how they handled it?

[Sports Analyst Seth]

I don't know.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Anybody spoken about, like, having a meeting about that specific.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

I don't know. I just know that that looked. The Rockets looked like a team.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

After the All Star break. Because that happened at the All Star break. Remember, Durant's walking around on the floor at the All Star game, looking at

[Sports Analyst Sean]

his phone all the time, and it's.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Well. And that was when the whole thing was bubbling up. So people assumed he was looking and seeing what the. What the. What the fallout was, was from all that stuff. They did not play like a team that squashed whatever these issues are. They didn't look like a team, didn't seem to act like a team.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

And.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

And when people get asked directly about it, you know, the players get asked directly about it, they deny that there's chemistry issues and things like that. I just know they played like a team that had chemistry issues. And I don't know if we have a full answer on how it all got handled behind the scenes. How did Ime Udoka handle it? Did he take it head on directly? Because that's what Durant's complaining about there. It's kind of funny to me, and it's a little off putting to me that Durant's almost complaining. Like, why didn't the adults discipline us a little bit more?

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Why didn't they take the reins on this? It's like everybody.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Like nothing happened and like, maybe assuming that us Two adults would figure it out.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Right?

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah. Yeah, you're right. No, 100%. I'm glad you said that.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Like, wait a second. Like, why. Why is it on?

[Sports Analyst Seth]

So it's Bob Myers fault and Steve Kerr's fault.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Right, Like, Steve Kerr, sure. He could have handled it differently, obviously. But also, you've got some agency in that you're being one of the parties involved.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

That cut made me that. That as a rocket fan. Yeah, that cut made me concerned for. I guess, not concern. I mean, I think we know the kind of. The deal with Kevin Durant going in, and he's. He's. He's never going to be a take the team by the lapels kind of leader, that it just takes the reins. He's a great basketball player. There's no question about that. And there's certainly, I'm sure, ways he leads by example. But this. This cut to me just kind of reinforced, like, okay, we know what we're not getting with Kevin Durant. You know, we know we're not getting somebody. Somebody that is this. This chemistry leader force multiplier, like an ethos force multiplier, culture force multiplier behind the scenes.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Right. Has he been in complete denial about the burner gate stuff? Like, did he just flat out tell everybody? No, it's garbage. I don't know what this is.

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[Sports Analyst Seth]

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[Sports Analyst Sean]

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[Sports Analyst Seth]

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[Sports Analyst Sean]

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[Sports Analyst Seth]

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[Sports Analyst Seth]

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[Sports Analyst Sean]

Why does it feel like nobody really gives us the inside scoop? Join us on the Powers that Be, the podcast where insiders from Puck break

[Sports Analyst Seth]

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[Sports Analyst Sean]

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[Sports Analyst Seth]

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[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah, it wasn't.

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[Sports Analyst Sean]

The problem. This is where it. But the problem is that's a hard denial to make because of your reputation as a guy that's on Twitter all the time and has burner accounts and all that. That. Yeah. You know, you know, you've been in positions before where you're totally innocent, but you know, it looks like you're guilty.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Right.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

And that's a hard way to talk yourself out of because all of a sudden you sound defensive, like, oh, but you're saying exactly what a guy would say.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

For me, I almost get it into my head that I did.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah. All the circumstantial evidence looks like I did it.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

And I know that as I try to explain this, I'm going to sound exactly like somebody who's lying about not having a burner account.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Because like, so he made his bet in that regards. Yeah. I don't, I don't have an appetite for Kevin Durant blaming management or Steve Kerr for him. For him not getting along with Draymond Green.

[Commercial Narrator]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

That's what those are like your two veteran players that should be able to figure this stuff out. If you're going to have a veteran led team, you should be able to figure this out.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Draymond and I were acting like babies yelling at each other. It affected the locker room for the rest of the year. By all accounts, to the extent that Kevin Durant Kevin Durant up and left the team and went somewhere else at the end of the year. Whose fault is that, man?

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Everybody but mine.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

So I take no accountability.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Does it make me more concerned, less concerned, the same amount of concern about Kevin Durant because Kevin Durant is an outstanding basketball player. It doesn't move the needle for me very much because it's not like I thought they were bringing Durant in here to be this, this. This thing that the chemistry of the team was built on. Yeah, he's here to score 28 points.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Nobody, nobody don't rock the boat. Nobody expects Durant to come in and be the alpha that tells everybody how it's going to be or anything. He's a good resource for the younger players and all of that, but he's not necessarily going to be the guy that just creates the emotional drive of the team.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yep, yep. It was interesting seeing the two of them sitting down with each other and just kind of nodding their heads and talking to Draymond, kind of agreeing with Kevin Durant that it was Steve Kerr's fault and Bob Myers.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

I mean, Draymond. Draymond's one of those, you know, he reminds me of a little bit, is like he's. If C.J. gardner Johnson just could control himself a little bit better because CJ Gardner Johnson knows that he can be a bit much and yet he just always goes back to like, even within the same interview. I watched a bunch of interviews of him last year and, you know, he's a guy that knows he needs to act differently, but then he just can't help. But at some point, even after he's said he takes accountability for it, like five minutes later in the interview, he's blaming somebody for why it didn't work out here or why it didn't work out there. Draymond has that tendency, but I think he's more self aware. Like he knows he's a pain in the ass, but he also knows that him being a pain in the ass is kind of part of what makes him. Like, it's part of what works for him and also works with him being on that warriors team, but. Or those great warriors team. He's got more self awareness of it than C.J. gardner Johnson.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

No, Draymond being a heel is part of what makes him. What has made him at times a great. I think he's still a good player. What has made him at times a great player. Yeah, at least a great fit in Golden State for what he does. No question. No question. About that. All right, Payne and Pendergast with you. I want to get to this later. There was an article in the. In the ringer about the Rockets by Michael Pena. And I. I was. I don't know where I was on the spectrum of hoping the Rockets would make a big move this off season. I'm sure at times I probably said, look, if you're going to catch OKC in San Antonio, running it back ain't the way. He. He actually kind of talked me into the running it back thing. We probably don't have time to dig into it a little.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

If he says all the same things I've been telling you, I'm going to lose my crap.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Well, he puts a. He puts big value on Fred Van

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Vliet coming back, right?

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Which is what I. Sean might, but

[Sports Analyst Seth]

he put some numbers behind it last year. That made me think, okay, no, this

[Sports Analyst Sean]

is where, honestly, like when you try to detach yourself from everything, it's that if you look at this team running it back goes back to before Fred Van Vliet got injured last year, people were very, very bullish about the Rockets. It's the exact same roster, by and large, that you were bullish about before Fred Van Vliet got injured.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

That's what he told me in this article.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

I know. It's what I've been saying this whole damn time in that. And he probably also says without Fran Van Vliet, this young core that you're so excited about were forced to play out of position. So certainly you didn't see the better version of those guys.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Says simply a focus on clearer roles and fewer turnovers. In all seriousness, the part. I didn't realize just how bad they were at some of these things. 27th in turnover differential last year, second slowest pace.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah. When you got a bunch of young guys trying to figure out how to run the offense through themselves and they're not that good at it. You turn the ball over a lot.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Some of the things he's saying. Yeah. All right. He brought up some other things, too, about how well positioned they are going into this season to be nimble. We'll get into that later in the show. But I. I'm starting. I'm starting to go through. I go through this like Kubler Ross, five phases with all my teams in the off season, like after they get knocked out of the playoffs. And I'm kind of at acceptance right now for last year, and I'm ready to start talking myself into the rockets.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah. No, I think that honestly was.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Took me a little longer to go through.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

The problem is the whole, the whole thing about the Fred Van Vliet stuff is it gets tied up with Raphael Stone's refusal to do anything about it. That you also, I think just get sick of talking about or using it as an excuse because it doesn't feel like, well, okay, an above average point guard, but not a star point guard. Should it really make that big of a difference? Yeah. If that's the only guy you have. The only point, that's the only guy you have. Yes. And it's a big deal.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yep. All right, Pain and pender gas with you. What is it like to be chased around by a 2,000 pound bison? We have the description, the play by play from the guy who went through that from his hospital bed. Here's Pain and Pendergast. I Pain and Pendergast with you as we head towards the 8 o' clock hour. All right, so we.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Big announcement at 10.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Big announcement. 10 o' clock today. Yeah, be here for that. I'm telling you, be here for that.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

I will.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

You will not be disappoint.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Sean. I've been telling you, telling me, nagging and nagging.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Hammer at home, stay until the end of the show. I'm going to over communicate with you on this. I'd also like the rest of you to be here for it as well. But damn it, Seth, you'd be here for it too. 10 o' clock today, big announcement. Can't wait. So one of the stories hit last week that really fit in perfectly for the week that was last week. That classic like, oh, there's no baseball and there's no this.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

A lot of people are on summer vacation.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yes.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Maybe even taking a trip to Yellowstone or something, you know. Right, right.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

I feel bad saying this and I can say it now because he survived the attack.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

But for content reasons only. It's kind of a good thing that this guy got attacked by a bison. This Carl Ice and.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Carl Ice and McDaniel, he wasn't. He didn't get gored to death, right?

[Sports Analyst Seth]

No, no, no, he's alive. If he had died or had been debilitated drastically, I would not be saying these things.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

But for those of you didn't see it.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah, but go ahead.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

A lot of times you got, you know, you hear about somebody getting attacked by a bison and you're like, oh, this is going to be pretty bad.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

And then you watch and you're like, how is this possibly Worse than what I thought it was gonna be. He went this bison through this. Like, how old is he?

[Sports Analyst Seth]

He's like 75 years.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

75 year old man who's like, not, you know, he's got a little extra weight on him. He's not at his ideal body weight. And he's 75 years old.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Get jacked 12ft into the air and land pretty hard after. Also, I was worried about him. He was dodging the bison pretty effectively, using the tree trunks as cover for a while.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

He was doing a good job of reading his blocks.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

The guy's ticker probably isn't doing all that great by that point. So he survived, though.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

He survived. He suffered some leg injuries, getting tossed in the air.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

He wasn't taunting the bison or anything. So it wasn't one of these stories where you're like, oh, you idiot.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

It was him and his grandson.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

So his grandson, he's a teenage grandson who was there in a Dolphins jersey, and the two of them were standing literally all the way across the street.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

With. He had his iPhone out, just taking a picture. You're right. Wasn't taunting him. Was, you know, barely making, you know, like, probably thinking, oh, good, he's not making eye contact with us even.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

But it being the beginning of the rut for bison up there, a lot of the males are getting kind of ornery. They're kind of agitated. Yeah. They're headed out to the club.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah. So he's like, well, that looks kind of like a bison. Let's go. He's got a lot of hair on his face.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Thank God it didn't turn into that.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Oh. So, yeah. Right. The only damage was, was this guy. His name again is Carl Eisen McDaniel. So one of the news stations caught up with him in his hospital bed. So if you're wondering a sort of a first person account of what it's like to get attacked by a bison. Here you go. Even though I was on the ground, he could have stomped me. He could have gored me, could have done anything. We saw the bison and he was down. He wasn't showing aggression or anything like that until it picked a target. That target happened to be me.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

At the time.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

I had my grandson with me. It was like, you need to get up to the amphitheater. I will deal with this. Down here, they move faster than you could ever imagine. He just kept coming, and he was more aggressive. And as soon as he got off that tree, he launched me in the air.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Way in the air.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

He sounds If I had to guess, I would guess that was like a

[Sports Analyst Seth]

35 year old guy, very young sounding voice.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

No wonder this guy's so resilient.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

He looks super old because he's got one of those long ZZ top.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Well, he had that long beard. He had like a flannel shirt on. He looked like a guy that might have. Again, even as he's talking about the bison there, it doesn't sound like he's like one of these idiots who thinks they're going to go feed the grizzly bears at Yellowstone. Correct. You know, like it does that. Like he probably, he sounds like a guy who's probably, maybe even a little embarrassed that it happened to him because he's probably told other people like hey, yes, wild animals are, they're called wild. He probably himself has said, hey, they move a lot faster than you think. But then all of a sudden you're like oh, it really is moving faster than I thought.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

I'm a little disappointed that this guy doesn't like have his own podcast yet. Remember Hawk to a girl when she went viral?

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

She's making millions on her podcast now. Are making a lot of money.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

She might not be some kind of a. She had a crypto scam, crypto coin.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

She's got a lot of followers still on social media. She's probably getting a little, some little lagna from Instagram and stuff.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

That guy sounds really young and I would never guess that's a 75 year old man.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

I don't know what his podc to be about but he was the viral thing for like a week. I'm go get that money, man.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

I'm reading a book. Okay. I'm listening to a book, Death in Yellowstone and it was not about the show Yellowstone. Death in Yellowstone. You know that's, that's stupid show. I used to love it and then it gored me. Like there's a lot of death.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

That's why.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

So no death in Yellowstone. It's an account of various deaths from the 1800s until like 2012 in Yellowstone. And so far I'm early into it but there's a common theme which is people doing stupid stuff at Yellowstone. And more than anything, just like people, this is what it sounds like. People really, they go to Yellowstone and they think they're at Animal Kingdom.

[Commercial Narrator]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Like they don't realize like no, they're wild animals will kill you. They'll kill you dead. They don't have a. Like this is not.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

And then you mean like Animal Kingdom at Disney.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yes, yes. Yes. They really think, like, oh, we ride a tram and then we go. But all these people, like, there's signs everywhere saying, hey, these are not just hot springs, they're boiling springs.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Don't go in them.

[Caller or Guest]

And then.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

You know why I got the book? Because last a few days ago, a woman and her child decided to go off of the boardwalk and start walking up to the edge of this boiling hot spring, which people have died multiple times, as evidenced by the book Death in Yellowstone.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yellowstone. Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

But this is the part that pisses you off about the book. How many of these people's families, after they die in Yellowstone being idiots. Sue. Sue, Sue, Sue Yellowstone or sue the government or whatever.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Like, how could you? No. Well, you need to explain further that boiling water can kill you.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Do they win these lawsuits?

[Sports Analyst Sean]

No, no, they get thrown out really quick.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Okay.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah. It's a kind of. It's one of. It's like with. You know, when you eat raw oysters and you get poisoning, the courts are like, yeah, that's what happens sometimes. Happens.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah, we know it's an aphrodisiac, but it's also a colon cleanser at times.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

But that's the thing that happens is that people just don't. Like, they think they're gonna.

[Caller or Guest]

They.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

They sit their kids on a bear, you know, like, they think that's a good idea. It'll be a good photo op for the. For the gram.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Hey, speaking of.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Of.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Of. Of attacks and stupid things and whatnot, what do you think this is, according to Gemini? So I acknowledge that the numbers may be off the percentage chance of surviving a bison attack.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Surviving a bison attack.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Just surviving.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Okay. I'm guessing. You know what? The survival rates are always higher than you expect. Even, like a gunshot wound to the head. Head has a higher.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

I'd expect that to be zero.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

No. But it tends to be like, you don't want to survive it.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

The. I would guess it's like 67%.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

It's. According to Gemini. To Gemini, it's 99%.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah. There's wild animals. If they're not carnivores, they're not trying to eat you. They are carnivores. They're not trying to eat you. They're just trying to, like, get rid of you.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

That's what it says. While bison are incredibly powerful, weighing up to £2,000 and capable of sudden charges.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

As Carl Ice and McDonald McDaniel found out, their attacks typically consist of a single charge toss or gore, followed by the animal moving on Rather than a prolonged assault. Do you think that more of the deaths come from getting tossed way high in the air and then just the landing on the ground or getting gored? I bet the gore is when they just jam the horn through you.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Right? They don't like use when I've seen the tab, only seen a couple of them, but they don't. It doesn't seem like they're trying to thrash you with their horns the way like a bull would or something. So I'm guessing it's the fall to the ground.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah, maybe. Fatalities are very unusual according to the National Park Service at Yellowstone.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Okay, so this book you're reading probably doesn't have many bison related deaths.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Not yet.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Not yet. Well, it's.

[Oregon Lottery Announcer]

If.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

If they do, it'll be one of two.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Okay.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Only two recorded fatalities in Yellowstone from encounters with bison. That surprises me a little bit. Yeah, just like only two and there hasn't been one. Boy, this Iceland McDaniel guy almost made history. There hasn't been one since 1983 at Yellowstone.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

You think he's disappointed that he wasn't maybe 75? It's not like you're setting a record. It's just the first since 1983.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Right.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

You want to call that a record? That's like the Al home run record. You're manufacturing it, you know. Yeah, no, this guy's no better than Aaron Judge, if that's what he's saying. You know what I liked about the

[Sports Analyst Seth]

cut we played of him was, was him like making sure his grandson was okay. You know, I was like, hey, man, get to the. Whatever the amphitheater is. I'm guessing maybe they've got like an amphitheater where they do, you know, shows or whatever up there in Yellowstone.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Again, Sean, it's not Disney. There's no animatronic bear show or whatever, you know.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

No, but. But I. Amy and I went to Theodore Roosevelt national park and they had an amphitheater.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah, no, they probably do. They do their little like nature, their wildlife presentations.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Animal Kingdom.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah, Disney.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah, me too. It's pretty cool.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

It is.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

The animals do come kind of walking up. If you have the. If your room faces the right way, the animals come walking up there. Yeah, but you're right, they're much more docile probably.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

And hasn't been a single bison in

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Animal Kingdom that I saw. Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

This other kid. The other big sports injury news other than the. The bison attack was this. This player for the A's.

[Oregon Lottery Announcer]

Oh.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Underwent emergency surgery for a ruptured dude,

[Sports Analyst Seth]

testicle after getting a base hit. Yeah, like, he got hit in the schnutz.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Played for. He played for an inning after.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yes.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

The. The. The.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

It was like, wow, this still really hurts.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

It was Joshua Crota Grauer, however you pronounce his name.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

He underwent emergency surgery to repair a ruptured testicle Monday night, hours after fouling a ball off the region.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Dude.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

The region of his testicles.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Oh, does he wear a cup of.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

I don't. Probably not.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah, he will now. An iron one.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Not as many guys wear cups as people.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

I know. I know.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

People are. There's some people that don't realize that football players don't wear cups. Yeah, yeah. Like, nobody wears a cup. That'd be the dumbest thing ever. But I like. Like, sometimes. Why would. Because it chafes and everything. You got to run around and. Yeah, yeah.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

I remember the first time wearing one, like, in Little League. I'm like, this hurts.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Yeah. No, it's awful.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

No, because in football, like, if you're playing, it's an. It's an incentive to play with proper pad level. True.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

If you're playing low and in a good position, you're not. You're. Yeah. You're kind of protected.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

You ever take one in a game, Like a knee ever land?

[Sports Analyst Sean]

No, I don't think I ever have. Not fall. Yeah. I can't remember a single time I took a nutshot.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

You know what that tells me? You play with perfect technique.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

No, that's definitely not it. Yeah, it's just. It's not as. It's just not as common.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Everybody's trying to punch up around your torso.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Okay, gotcha.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

I've never been into that. I never had, like, a moment in the pile or anything where there was one time where stories. There was a. One time where I was fighting for a ball down there at. We used to call it Reliance Stadium back in the day. Sean, that's what they're going to do soon.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

It's old as new.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

We were playing the Chiefs, and there was a. There was a scrum. There was a loose ball, and I was trying to get my hand in and grab the football, and I grabbed and squeezed.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Ew.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

And I was like, that's.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

That's not a football.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

That's a flaccid forearm. And then I was like, wait a second. Forearms aren't typically flaccid. Then I was like. And then all of a sudden, I felt deep shame and inadequacy. I was like, what the hell is. Oh, my gosh. And I let go. And the, the person I was doing to wasn't. It wasn't all that thrilled about it. He thought I did it intentionally.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

And I was like, no, dude, it was exact. But by the way, good for you.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

What the hell? I didn't know that this was. That's not anything. Of the. Yeah. Of the two that I've now held in my life, that one is by far the superior one. I don't have a lot to go off of, but, man, good job.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

Coming up next, I can't wait to find out who it was.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Tony Gonzalez. Well, it's. He going to be upset that I told everybody.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

That's great. I'll never look at him the same again.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Sorry I divulged your details.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

He's going to sign an Amazon prime deal for 20 years starting today. All right, coming up next, we'll get back to the Astros. We'll talk about last night. Is the percentage chance of these guys getting traded from the Astros as high as Jeff Passon thinks it is? We'll discuss.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

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Every week on the Moth podcast, you'll

[Sports Analyst Seth]

hear true stories that will intrigue you, inspire you and make you laugh.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

She said, is there anything and your

[Sports Analyst Seth]

diet that might be spiking your blood sugar?

[Sports Analyst Sean]

I said, sometimes I eat pizza until I'm unconscious.

[Sports Analyst Seth]

He said, I think that might be it for real.

[Sports Analyst Sean]

Stories live on stage from comedians, astronauts, accountants, farmers and people just like you

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