Payne and Pendergast July 20th Full Show

Summary

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Payne & Pendergast — July 20, 2026 Full Show Summary

Hosts: Seth Payne, Sean Pendergast
Guest Co-host: Cole Thompson
Podcast Theme: In-depth, no-nonsense (and sometimes humorous) talk on the Houston sports scene—especially the Astros and Texans—with unapologetic opinions, relatable banter, and inside analysis.

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Episode Overview

This episode is a classic slice of H-Town sports radio: post-All Star break malaise (Astros), simmering Texans preseason optimism (and skepticism), and broad-ranging sports culture discussion. Payne & Pendergast dive into what’s gone wrong with the 2026 Astros, what it means for the future, the level of panic among fans, trade deadline anxieties, and the fate of manager Joe Espada and GM Dana Brown. The hosts also preview Texans training camp, debate the CJ Stroud discourse, review the NFL quarterback docuseries, and have plenty of fun with soccer fan culture post-World Cup.

The banter is relentlessly sharp but conversational, full of memorable analogies and direct, often acerbic takes—especially regarding the Astros’ continued unraveling. A lot of listener interactivity, some "affirmations" (sarcastic and otherwise), and sports news digressions (lottery, wrestling, food, etc.) round out a classic, rant-heavy, and highly entertaining morning.

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Astros in Crisis: The Anatomy of a Collapse

[02:07–18:18] Season on the Brink

• Astros Post-Break Slide:
  • Astros swept out of the All-Star break, now 7 games under .500.
  • The mood: exhausted sarcasm ("altitude was getting to me… nice to be back down in Death Valley" — Seth, 02:46).
  • Analogies fly: “This whole season has felt like you’re at a school play… you know it’s gonna suck.” (Seth, 02:58)
• Clubhouse Malaise:
  • Yainer Diaz and Zach Dezenzo called out for "lackadaisical" play—e.g., not hustling, poor awareness on basic plays (Yainer strolling off, Dezenzo not running on a dropped third strike).
  • “This team just is not in sync with their manager or self-awareness” (Sean, 05:44)
  • “These guys aren’t cut from the same cloth” as Golden Era 'Stros (Seth, 06:53).
  • Repeated cliches: lack of urgency, "don’t want it enough," lacking leadership.
• Management Under Fire:
  • Manager Joe Espada seen as out of touch, leadership vacuum ("running out of ways to light a spark" — Sean, 07:41).
  • “Is Joe Espada the guy for this team? Not end of the year—now?” (Sean, 07:41)
  • Dana Brown’s pitcher acquisitions framed as failures—three DFA’d by July, others underperforming (10:09–13:07).
  • Farm system ranked near the bottom, yet there’s fear they’ll "trade 10 prospects for three mediocre arms" at the deadline (Seth, 10:52).
• Front Office and Clubhouse Culture:
  • Astros compared to spoiled prep school kids wearing the old championship "blazer," but not earning it anymore (Seth, 11:19).
  • "They're imposters. The spirit of what made the 'Stros great is gone" (Seth, 11:40).
  • Altuve can’t/doesn’t provide the needed leadership; Bregman/Springer era grit missed badly.

Notable Quotes

• “You don’t need analytics to tell you these guys don’t have urgency.” — Seth, 07:18
• “Who the hell are these guys? Who’s running this thing?” — Sean, 06:30
• [On GM] “You can’t even evaluate your own guys.” — Seth, 10:52

[18:18–30:00+] Rebuilding or Retooling?

• Death Spiral Math:
  • Previous bad starts were always reversed by midseason but not in 2026; team is "going the wrong way" (Sean, 09:42).
  • “There’s nothing about this baseball team right now that makes you feel like they’re able to do anything impressive.” — Seth, 08:19
• Future Moves:
  • Debate on whether management (Espada, Brown) survives to next year. Ownership will likely pursue a conventional GM/manager reset if this continues (Sean/Seth, 21:05–21:47).
  • Trade deadline dilemma: is it dangerous to let Dana make moves that mortgage the little farm strength left?

[34:44–39:25] Headline Recap: The Weekend’s Moves

• Astros sent Brian King down; Renell Blanco returns from Tommy John.
• Astute listener note: the "new trade deadline acquisition" pattern of injured players returning.
• Real talk: expanded wild card may deceptively keep fans (and perhaps management) “buying in,” when in reality the playoff odds are slim.

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Texans: Preseason Anxiety & The CJ Stroud Discourse

[19:50–34:44, 45:07–64:30] Training Camp Countdown and Quarterback Questions

• Roster/Depth Questions: “Will the new Derek Barnett please stand up?”

  • Defensive end depth: can Dominique Robinson or Logan Hall be productive rotational players?
  • Debate free agent options: Derek Barnett (possibly returning), Clowney, Von Miller, Hasson Reddick, Joey Bosa (28:50+).
  • Will Anderson’s ankle issues discussed, but Seth (ex-player) isn’t too worried about repeat injury.

• CJ Stroud Under Scrutiny:

  • Is he a franchise guy? Can early-season wins silence doubters?
  • Four-tough-start preview: three at home vs Bills, Bengals, Cowboys; division game at Indy.
  • “A lot of the fans seem to be in ‘wake me up in January’ mode.” — Sean, 49:21
  • Some skepticism that early wins will sway the hard-to-please “prove it in playoffs” crowd.
  • “The offense looked comatose most of last year… but if he looks sharp out the gate, a lot of people will flip quickly.” — Seth, 49:25
  • Noted: National/league perception ("stock is low"), contract extension debate—should Stroud get early money or does he need to earn it with a truly top season?

Notable Quotes

• “People are very much in wait-and-see with CJ Stroud—including the Texans, it would appear.” — Seth, 60:17
• “My appetite for coddling a quarterback with a big extension is zero.” — Seth, 61:11

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Astros Talk, Again: Affirmations (98:52+) (Satirical Segment)

• Seth delivers “positive affirmations” for Astros players and coaches, e.g.:
  • Joe Espada: “I hold my players accountable when they don’t hustle. I don’t have to bunt like it’s 1973.”
  • Christian Walker: “When I have a bad moment, I don’t mope—I walk to the dugout with pride.”
  • Tatsuya Imai: “The ball is sticky enough. The mound is the appropriate height.”
  • Mike Burrows: “I don’t need to serve up meatballs. I can nibble the corners.”
• Audience and co-hosts chime in with their own “player therapy” lines.
• Sarcasm here is biting: “These sound like backhanded affirmations” — listener, 101:47

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Football "Quarterback" Docuseries (79:13–91:19)

• All three hosts review the NFL Netflix series “Quarterback” (Season 2).
  • Universal verdict: You come away liking almost everyone more, especially Baker Mayfield (“He’s matured”; “I love him even more now”).
  • Jaden Daniels: talented, but comes off dull (“I don’t want my quarterback wearing shades indoors”—Sean, 84:20).
  • Cam Ward: “Serious, uses a notebook, super competitive—if I were a Titans fan, I’d be hyped.”
  • Joe Flacco: likable “second act” guy, funny Corvette story; “Trend up” for him.
  • Call for Texans’ own CJ Stroud (or not) to be featured next year.

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World Cup: American Love Fest, Fan Memories & Soccer Seth’s Triumph

[154:58–164:57] Takeaways and Cultural Moments

• USA the Good: Flood of respect and surprise from international visitors during World Cup: "It really is bigger in Texas… refills, ranch dressing, Whataburger" (Sean/Seth, 158:12).
• Fan Rituals: Norway rowing/Netherlands Orange Walk/Houston hosting: “It was one of the most incredible fan experiences people had…”
• **Soccer Seth wins the station pool ("Scantron method"—random picks, total victory).
• Non-soccer highlights: The Freddy superfan saga (sponsored by JJ Watt & fans), drama over red card rules/overturn, Cinderella team stories.
• World Cup in Houston made the experience more immersive for even casual/non-fans.

Notable Quotes

• “It was kind of a kumbaya for the entire world.” — Seth, 157:29

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The Lighter Side: Headlines & Diversions

• Lottery Ethics: Story of a guy who stole $24 million from his coworkers in a pool—who at Sports Radio 610 would do that? (Sean jokes it could be him.)
• Tom Brady & WWE: Brady feuds with Logan Paul, gets called out for “having fun” by stodgy sports media. Sean: “Stop being so snooty about wrestling.”
• Florida Story: Pizza shop offers free pies for Burmese pythons (ecological bounty hunting).
• Nick Wright the "Sports Jinx": TV host cursed several World Cup favorites by rooting for them.

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Weekly Acknowledge Me! [64:30–77:03]

• Listeners and hosts recognize standout performances (and bizarre happenings), including Peter Lambert (Astros’ unexpected bright spot), Bruce Thornton (Rockets’ Summer League revelation), MLB ads for a salary cap ("Rob Manfred political action committee" bit), and more.

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Notable Timestamps & Moments

• 06:03 – School play/suffering Astros analogy
• 07:18 – “Don’t need analytics…” quote
• 11:19–12:01 – Astros’ leadership “prep school”/ “rich daddies’” blazer metaphor
• 31:16 – Clowney/rotational DEs free agency roundtable
• 53:01 – Texans early season “which loss would you tolerate?”
• 61:11 – No appetite for “coddling” young QBs with money
• 98:52 – Sarcastic Astros affirmations (“I don’t have to bunt like it’s 1973”)
• 158:04 – World Cup visitors marvel over American/Texan excess
• 162:31 – "Jameis Winston story" embedded in soccer culture segment
• 164:57 – “Soccer Seth” bragging about winning the World Cup pool

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Tone & Delivery

• Direct, irreverent, sometimes darkly comic.
• Lots of analogies and quick-fire sarcasm, especially in venting about the Astros.
• Deeply interactive, with plenty of listener texts and off-the-cuff engagement.
• Segment transitions sometimes quick/abrupt—reflects the brisk pace of morning sports radio.

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Final Takeaways

• Astros: Clubhouse/organizational rot is the consensus take, with a likely needed overhaul and concern management will damage future prospects even further at the deadline.
• Texans: Moderate optimism laced with skepticism—fans (and perhaps the team) are solidly in “show me” mode with CJ Stroud and the whole franchise.
• World Cup: United the city, gave Americans (and Texans) a rare moment as beloved hosts, created lasting oddball sports-culture moments.
• Show as a whole: If you want blunt, funny, sharply critical (sometimes therapeutic) sports talk with zero pomposity, and a little healthy self-deprecation, this Payne & Pendergast episode is a perfect slice of Houston’s sports psyche in 2026.

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Selected Quotes by Timestamp

• 02:58 Seth: "This whole season has felt like you're at a school play, you know it's going to suck."
• 07:18 Seth: "I don't need analytics to tell you these guys don't have the same sense of urgency."
• 11:19 Seth: "It feels like a bunch of little spoiled brat prep school kids whose daddies are rich and they wear this blazer that has an Astros logo on it…"
• 49:25 Seth: "If [the Texans] actually show up and look like an impressive offense, then I think a lot of people flip pretty quickly."
• 60:17 Seth: "I think the inspiration level is very low... People are in very much wait and see [mode] with CJ Stroud. Including the Texans, it would appear."
• 98:52 (Affirmations) Seth (as Espada): "I don't have to bunt like it's 1973. I'm smart enough. People respect me for that."
• 158:12 Seth: "A lot of these Europeans... are like, oh my gosh, Whataburger is so incredible. Oh, they have so many McDonald's here!"
• 164:46 Sean: "I just, yeah, it's a... It's, it bores me. Not because it's a boring game, but because it's too easy for me."

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This episode is highly recommended for Houston sports fans needing to vent, laugh, and feel existential dread and hope all at once over the state of their beloved teams.

Transcript

[Sean Pendergast]

Latte for Keenan. That's me. Hey, you're.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Buying a car online on Autotrader. Really?

[Seth Payne]

But unlike other sites, you can start online, test drive with a local dealer, then finish online or at the dealership.

[Sean Pendergast]

Really? Wait, are you.

[Seth Payne]

Yep, It's Keaton. Able to finish in person without starting the process over.

[Cole Thompson]

Really?

[Seth Payne]

Your info stays with you every step of the way.

[Cole Thompson]

Cool. Enjoy.

[Seth Payne]

It's Keenan Thompson. Buy your car online on Autotrader.

[Cole Thompson]

Really?

[Seth Payne]

Diamond Dynasty has all new red diamond cards and World Baseball classic content in MLB the Show 26.

[Sean Pendergast]

Collect your favorites and compete against the best.

[Seth Payne]

MLB the Show 26 is available now

[Sean Pendergast]

on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series XS and Nintendo Switch.

[Seth Payne]

Rated E for everyone officially licensed by MLB players.

[Sean Pendergast]

Would you look at that. It's time for some of our favorite snapple reel facts. Reothack 1433. Toe wrestling is a competitive sport. Reel back 732. The chicken is the closest living relative of the Tyrannosaurus rex. And ryot back 1599. A man once ate an entire airplane. Yowch. Did he have any hot sauce?

[Seth Payne]

Yep.

[Sean Pendergast]

So anyways, this has been a refreshing break. Brought to you by Snapple Real tea, Real juice with Snap's a Disney Ref.

[Seth Payne]

Refreshing.

[Sean Pendergast]

Presented by T Mobile, the official wireless partner of Odyssey Sports. With an awesome network and great savings, there's never been a better time to join T Mobile. Visit your neighborhood store to make the switch.

[Seth Payne]

Today,

[Sean Pendergast]

Sports Radio 610 presents Seth Payne and Sean Pendergast.

[Seth Payne]

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.

[Seth Payne]

Let's do it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Hey, what's happening, everybody? Happy Monday to all of you. Nice to be with you. Appreciate you getting up with us. We are with you until 10:00am this morning. Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Trade deadlines coming up.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, trade deadlines coming up. Yeah. I'm Sean Pendergast. He is Seth Payne. Cole Thompson in with us again today. So looking forward to four hours of good chatter with you guys here. I'm so amped up normally on a. If this were a weekday, for example, tomorrow. Yeah, we've got people that are. That have eyes on the Astros game the night before. So when we come in, we normally bump in with Todd Callis's final call of the game the night before. And if we were to do that today, I would imagine it'd be something of like, well, the Astros lose again. They get swept coming out of the break and blummer, they've fallen below that plateau they were at at 5 games under.500 for a while. 7 games.

[Seth Payne]

These lofty perches. You know what? The altitude was getting to me, Sean. It's nice to be back down below sea level right down there in Death Valley.

[Sean Pendergast]

You felt a little fatigued when they were only three games under.500.

[Seth Payne]

It's already almost, it's almost. It's like, it's. This whole season has felt like you're, you're at a school play, you know, where you. It's gonna suck.

[Cole Thompson]

Are we at intermission at this point?

[Seth Payne]

What's that?

[Cole Thompson]

Are we at intermission at this point?

[Seth Payne]

No. Yeah, I guess so. The intermission would be like the. And you're wondering, like, I wonder if my kid will know that I don't go back in there.

[Cole Thompson]

Or we at the start of the second actor where we heard that first song.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's like, you know what?

[Cole Thompson]

This ain't worth it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, this was, this was the first song this week of the second act.

[Seth Payne]

Like, I guess, I guess they're trying. Some of these kids didn't learn their lines. Yiner. Diaz. Yiner would be the kid in the school play that just flat out is botching all the lines and everything. There's just, there's very few guys to lift them up, you know?

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes, it's.

[Seth Payne]

They're in a Gwyneth Paltrow in the bunch.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, they, they are. They're in a bad way right now, man. And the, you know, the injuries hit again this weekend with Pena and not like Christian Walker is any great shakes right now or anything like that, but he's still better than probably whatever you got backing him up.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, it's.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's a bad time right now. And, and so, so Happy Monday, everybody.

[Seth Payne]

Don't worry. It's a, it's a five game series, right? Is. It is. Yeah. We got more of this.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Yep, yep. We got the Marlins coming to town tonight. So I, I.

[Seth Payne]

Okay, never mind.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, so I said. So I said this, I said this on Saturday after the game. I was at the game on Friday, so that was fun. They were up 2 to 1 for most of the day. And Peter Lambert had another great game pitching. And then Brian King, who's no longer on the team, came in and did what he does, did what he's been doing the last five or six times he's come out there. He spit the bit. And then on Saturday, to me, to me on Saturday, these were plays that probably don't lose the game for them in any way. Like they, like they don't show up on the box score. They're. They're, you know, ultimately they're plays that probably wouldn't have been made. I think neither of the things I'm going to bring up are things that decided the game, but they're things where you just watch a team operate and you go, this is a team that feels like the manager does not have the ear or the pulse of his team at all right now.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

And it was in the 10th inning with the. With the. No, no, in the. Yeah, in the 10th inning with the. Let me back up. It was 11th inning where the Orioles scored the go ahead run on the little squiver to second base to Altuve.

[Cole Thompson]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

And instead of covering home with the runner, Gunner Henderson was running on. Jump was running from second base. He didn't stop.

[Cole Thompson]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yiner Diaz starts strolling back to the dugout like it's the end of the inning and there's nobody covering home. Now, Gunnar Henderson probably scores anyway on that play, but cover home, it's the.

[Seth Payne]

No, it's just a complete lackadaisical sense, like unawareness, lack of urgency. Just completely out to lunch on that cover home. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

And then this. This decided nothing with. But it's one of those things where it's like this. This team just is not in sync with their manager or self awareness.

[Seth Payne]

I know where you're going.

[Sean Pendergast]

Zach disenzo striking out to end the game. The ball bounces off the catcher and rolls 10ft to the side. I'm not saying he would have beat it out to first base, but you're Zach disenzo.

[Seth Payne]

He didn't even look.

[Sean Pendergast]

No, he.

[Seth Payne]

Yelling at him.

[Sean Pendergast]

He Walkered it.

[Seth Payne]

He just. Yes. He moped his way towards the dugout as the ball. As the catcher is scrambling to get the ball. It could have. He would have made it difficult. Yeah. The catcher would have had to make a decision on where to throw it. Like whether to hit him. Throw the ball, whatever. Like, it just.

[Cole Thompson]

He.

[Seth Payne]

But it was nowhere in his brain.

[Sean Pendergast]

You're Zach disenzo, man.

[Seth Payne]

You're right. Like, this is. And that's. That's the sequence. Those two plays right there are the ones where he felt like, who the hell are these guys? Who's this team?

[Sean Pendergast]

Like, who's running this thing?

[Cole Thompson]

Think about this, though, for a second. Zach disenzo could actually have playing time now because Christian Walker left in the fourth inning with an oblique injury. So he has first base reps. Who wants to see you go out there and just pull a Christian Walker when you're Zach freaking Desensa, he is.

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, if he's gonna be. If you're gonna be playing first base and you're replacing Christian Walker, you may go full Walker. I say yeah as well.

[Seth Payne]

It's. Honestly, it's like all the. I was thinking about this last night. I just. All of these, like, all the old school complaints and the grudge that you start to feel against a team, just. I, I will give. I'll throw out all the cliches about this baseball team. Yes. They don't want it enough. Yep. These guys don't care. I don. Who the hell are these guys? When you compare these guys to some of the golden era Astros, you do you realize that it's over time, year after year? All right? We're bringing these guys who are not only disappointments on the baseball field, but also just flat out, they're not cut from the same cloth. Which is odd because I thought we were getting away from analytics and back to the old blood and guts and everything. These guys, I don't need analytics to tell you that these guys don't have the same sense of urgency. I just play hard, know what the hell you're doing. It's ridiculous.

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, this is. This is how, you know, couple of things here. One, after. After that debacle on Saturday, I tweeted after the debacle, I'm like, we're one more bad loss away from the lead. Topic being is, should Joe Espada be the manager of this team? Not at the end of the year, like now. Like, should he be the manager of this baseball team? You're running out of ways. If you're Jim Crane, who is going to try to hold on to the. The window for as long as he can, you're running out of ways to light a spark under this.

[Seth Payne]

Hey, great. They got a bunch of high draft picks for the first time in forever. Please don't. Please don't trade them.

[Sean Pendergast]

No, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.

[Seth Payne]

Like, please, please, let's just. Let, let's. Let's recognize for what it is that you're running on fumes here. And there's nothing about this baseball team right now that makes you feel like they've actually got the ability to do anything impressive.

[Sean Pendergast]

No, no. And that's. And real quick, the, the. The part two, they've gotten off to bad starts in all three of Joe Espada seasons here. The difference here is that by the time they're 101 games in. By the time 101 games had rolled around the previous two Joe Espada seasons, they had, they had flipped the script on the season. You know, his first season, they got off to a horrible start. They were 12 and 24 by the time they were 101 games in right after the All Star break, they're 52 and 49. They're above.500. They're playing good baseball. Last season they started off 17 and 18. They were 59 and 42. By this time last year they were. I went and did the numbers yesterday. That sweep of the Dodgers last year over 4th of July weekend, they were 20 games above.500. After that sweep, they were 55 and 35. After that sweep of the Dodgers, they are 79 and 94 since then. Since that sweep of the Dodgers. So my point with all this is the previous two seasons, yeah, they've gotten off to bad starts, but they've turned it around by the time they get to that hundred game mark. They're, they're going the wrong way this time.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Like there's nothing. There's no, there's. And they finish. It's not like they finish with 95 wins and either they, they, they had to do that to finish with 88 and 87 wins in those seasons.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. And the, I mean, everything about the way they've handled it, despite all of the injuries, if you just look at the pitching alone, I mean, what do you do if you're Dana Brown and you're talking to Jim Crane about these six guys, plus Peter Lambert that you, that you, that you added to the roster this year?

[Cole Thompson]

Well, thank God he had a Peter

[Seth Payne]

Lambert at this point, which is his least heralded one.

[Cole Thompson]

Right.

[Seth Payne]

Remember, Spencer Arrighetti wasn't good enough to make the, the, the opening day roster for this baseball team because you had, you had your, the Mike Burroughs of this world and the Ryan Weisses that you couldn't doubt. How there's no place for, for Spencer Erraghetti on this baseball team.

[Cole Thompson]

Well, you dfa Peter Lambert and thankfully he took the assignment or else he could be pitching. El.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, that was the one. Exactly. 100%. The guys. He brought in six. Dan Brown brings in six major league pitchers and they dfa Peter Lambert, Spencer Arrighetti not good enough to be a part of this rotation at the beginning of the season. What the hell are you guys doing? What are you even doing? You can't even evaluate your own guys.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, no, you.

[Seth Payne]

They're going to. They're going to. It's a trade deadline. I swear, he's going to trade away 10 prospects for three mediocre pitchers and they're going to come in and suck.

[Cole Thompson]

And you already have the 30th ranked farm system in baseball, or at best on most. I think baseball America has the highest. They're 27th.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

So you're still a bottom three farm system and you're trading away assets when, let's be real, the window of being the legit contender in the American League is closed.

[Seth Payne]

It also, it feels so much. You know what it feels like this baseball team is right now? It feels like a bunch of little spoiled brat, like prep school kids who's.

[Sean Pendergast]

Because, because they're okay. You got me intrigued.

[Seth Payne]

Because they're. Well, because their daddies are rich and they wear this blazer that has an Astros logo on it and they feel like I'm a Houston Astro. Yeah, we always win baseball.

[Cole Thompson]

So they're walking around.

[Seth Payne]

They're imposters. Yeah. They're like, yeah, they all, they're all wearing the logo of a bunch of, like, that represents a bunch of guys who did things completely differently from the front office down to the actual players on the field. And like, look, Altuve is not the guy who's going to kind of demand that the young guys play up to a certain level. He leads by example and all of that. But the guys who are just gritty, grimy, nasty ballplayers like George Springer or Alex Bregman, they're. They're gone. They're nowhere to be seen. And when I say they're gone, I don't just mean that in body. The spirit of those guys and the way they play baseball out there is just not nearly the same.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's a great, It's a great observation. Sorry, Seth. When you, I had PTSD when you were, when you were talking about. What does Dana Brown say when he goes into Sit down with Jim Crane and talk about the six pictures that he picked up? Yeah, because I just got, I got back to thinking. I'm like, I remember that feeling when I was running sales for an entire company and my forecast sucked for the month.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

And you go into your staff meeting with the CEO like, so, Sean, how the numbers looking for this month? And, and, and you know, the numbers are bad and you're just trying to come up with something that makes them feel good.

[Seth Payne]

A bunch of great leads.

[Sean Pendergast]

I don't know. Yeah, yeah, no, the pipeline. It's always a pipeline. Now, as much coming in as we were open this month, but the pipeline,

[Cole Thompson]

we checked in on these groups.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've been in touch.

[Cole Thompson]

We got.

[Sean Pendergast]

We've got a lot of meetings.

[Seth Payne]

Let me show you all the people I've called.

[Cole Thompson]

There was mutual interest on both sides.

[Sean Pendergast]

We got. We got a lot of meetings set up. Yeah. Because Rodri Munoz, Ryan Weiss, Nate Pearson, in my mind, these all guy. These guys all represent deals that I lost back in the day. They're all. They're not with the team anymore. These are the six. The six major league pickups that Dana Brown made. And let me. Let me caveat with Dana. I don't think Dana Brown's going to make it out of this. I don't think Dana Brown was playing with the. I think the deck was stacked against him a little bit in taking this job. Like he inherited some, you know, Jose Abreu and the Javier contract and some other things still. That's no excuse for your six pickups, three of them being DFA'd by the all Star break or shortly after in the case of Nate Pearson. And then the other three, Tatsuya Imai has been. I. I'll be kind up and down this year. He's got a six era. Mike Burroughs has been a disaster. And then Kai Way Tang was fine as a reliever, but stunk as a starter.

[Cole Thompson]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

Those are your six.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, the other one about Yiner yesterday, since we were on Yiner a little bit, was just throwing. When Alonzo. Hunter Brown doesn't hold. Alonzo on. Alonzo steals second. There's no chance of making the play. Yiner throws, the second run, scores.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Double steal.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. The double steal. Yeah. Like. And just the brain dead. Brain dead stuff.

[Cole Thompson]

Yes.

[Seth Payne]

And that's where you wonder, okay, exactly what some of that stuff that happens. I like Espada. I don't. You know me, Sean, I don't need managers or coaches to be guys who are big yellers and screamers, because that's not what. That's. There are plenty of guys who hold people to a really high standard without having to do it that way, but I don't sense that anywhere on the team from anybody. It just. It's ridiculous.

[Sean Pendergast]

Would this be happening on Dusty Baker's watch?

[Seth Payne]

Right. Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

And I know the Dusty supporters, and I like Dusty.

[Cole Thompson]

He was. He was good manager.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

He won the World Series title. You got to take that.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

No. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

I'm not here to adjudicate Dusty's tenure. Dusty's a good manager. There's no doubt there. There's. I'm sure there's people hearing us say that Going, Told you. Told you. Dusty wasn't as bad as we thought.

[Seth Payne]

This is the difference, though, too. Is that Dusty look. Yeah. Obviously Dusty came into a much better sit and Espada and Dana Brown have come into. But I think that the difference was though, too, that there were a lot of. Just. There was a lot of player leadership. And by leadership, I mean just a certain standard. Remember when AJ Hinch had to talk to a young Kyle Tucker about having to have more. Having more of a sense of urgency because he wasn't the same as those other guys? And that's what we get. You could feel that the entire time Kyle Tucker was here. That's why I wasn't as emotionally upset over him as other guys, because he just wasn't cut from the same cloth. And these guys, it feels like they're trying to get as many guys who are more like in the mold of Kyle Tucker's lackadaisical attitude out there. Then there are. Then. Then there are the George Springers of the world.

[Cole Thompson]

You guys be mad at this comp. On the text line we have Espada reminds me of David Culley. Only wants to talk about the positives.

[Sean Pendergast]

I think I. There. I think there are elements to that

[Cole Thompson]

comparison, but not entirely middle. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

I don't think David Cully was completely.

[Seth Payne]

David Cully just didn't know. I mean, that was. There were certain basic things about even being a coordinator that he didn't understand. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. And I think Espada, like Espada. I think. I think there. There are definite strategic things I disagree with with him. I think he's way too old school in some of the things that he does.

[Seth Payne]

He's in love with the small ball, small ball bunting.

[Sean Pendergast]

And got a pinch run for good hitters because this guy's one mile an hour, you know, like 2% faster than this guy at the end of game. Really.

[Seth Payne]

The move that ended up probably helping getting him the job was in the playoffs when he pinch hit John Singleton.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Honestly wasn't. It's not like we were all sitting there like, oh, thank God, Singleton's in now.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, Singleton, yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. And. But it was. He's in love with that type of stuff. The small ball maneuvering at the end of games now it's. I always remind. I try to give him a little bit of a break because it's not like he's dealing. There aren't just power hitters who abound on this lineup that are. That you should be banking on. But even when Christian Walker was hitting really? Well, he was pinch running Christian Walker. Now it makes more sense because Christian Walker can't do anything.

[Sean Pendergast]

He pinched. He pinched runs for Jordan Alvarez in close games. Yeah, he did that. He was one hitter away from your. A pinch hitter for Jordan or a pinch runner for Jordan a couple innings prior In a game earlier this year, One batter away from that spot in the lineup. Coming up, the Astros lost the game. One hitter before that. But I. Yeah, that's. I. So there's a.

[Seth Payne]

There.

[Sean Pendergast]

There are a lot of philosophical things with Joe Espada that I disagree with. I don't think he's unfit to be a manager, though. Like, David Culley was unfit to be a head coach in the NFL. Like, he just didn't understand the nuances of decision making in games.

[Seth Payne]

My favorite David Colley moment.

[Sean Pendergast]

He was way more hilarious in press conferences.

[Seth Payne]

Well, at the very end of the season when he was on Texans All Access, I remember him. You know, John or Market asked the question about, like, hey, what's something you learned this year? And he said it like it was the most novel concept in the world. This is a guy who's been in the NFL for decades. You know, sometimes. You know what I realized is sometimes if you just. If you just go up tempo a little bit, it can kind of get the offense going, really. But the way he said it, too, it was like he'd never even heard of the concept before. It wasn't because that's. People always have that complaint, like, why don't you guys go up tempo more? And usually there's reasons why you don't. The reason usually isn't that, like, the coordinator just the coach didn't even think of it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right.

[Seth Payne]

Like, oh, I didn't even know that was an idea.

[Sean Pendergast]

I didn't know it was available to me.

[Cole Thompson]

Did you hear this new concept? It's called two minute Drill.

[Seth Payne]

Maybe we should try this.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, try it. Okay. Text message. I knew you guys were going to crash out this morning, and y' all are not disappointing. Christian Walker has totally checked out at the.

[Seth Payne]

I'm disgusted with myself. I might as well be Einer Diaz in knowing what the hell's going on with his baseball team. Because on Friday, I'm like, well, I can't remember what I said on Friday. I think you were happy.

[Cole Thompson]

You were.

[Seth Payne]

I was happy. That's right. I know. I'm so stupid, because I had a few days off. I was well rested, and I was

[Sean Pendergast]

like, that's what I thought they would be. Dave had a few days off. They're well rested.

[Seth Payne]

The only thing productive that came out of the weekend was Hunter Brown almost murdered. Alonzo did not like internal bleeding right now.

[Sean Pendergast]

He did not like that.

[Seth Payne]

He seems like a nice enough guy, but it was fun to watch a little bit of internal bleeding.

[Sean Pendergast]

All right. Baseball Talk ON Sports Radio 610 is presented by Xfinity. Score. The most reliable Wi Fi 1 price 5 years guaranteed. Xfinity. Imagine that. All right, we've got a countdown going on to training camp, which starts a week from Wednesday. So we started counting down last Thursday, 10 radio days until Texans training camp. We're on day number eight right now. We counted down last week. If you want to go back and listen to the questions. We're doing a question of the day for the Texans leading up to training camp. We've been doing it in this segment. Cole, what is our question for today?

[Cole Thompson]

Will the new Derek Barnett please stand up?

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, good. I know this will be one Seth likes. This has to do with depth at the defensive end position. All right, good. All right, so we'll do that. Here's Payne and Pen to be with you. Hope you had a great weekend. Sean Pendergast, Seth Payne. Cole Thompson in with us as well. Text page Just seems like Espada doesn't know what he's doing at times. Like Kali. I miss managers like Hinch and Dusty. That'd be the big question if they move on from Joe. From Joe Espada.

[Cole Thompson]

Like, how.

[Sean Pendergast]

How good a job is this? Like what? You know, is this a manager? Is this a job that a manager that's done some things looks at and says, oh, yeah, I can get this thing moving back in the right direction.

[Seth Payne]

The pipeline, if the. The pharmacist interview, look at the lower, lower levels and the recent draft picks and everything, there's reason to believe that, yeah, good stuff. There's hope for the future. So it' to be somebody, if you want to get somebody who's a real deal, they got to feel like there's an actual commitment there. And then it comes to, okay, does he. How does he feel about Dana Brown? If Dana Brown's still here?

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, it's package deal, I think.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

One's out the door. You're both at the door.

[Seth Payne]

And then the question is, all right, how long do you guys wait to hire a gm? Because the last time it didn't go so hot. Like, is can't be Jim Crane and Jeff Bagwell and those guys operating as if is if everything's just fine.

[Sean Pendergast]

That was totally unconventional. You you let a GM go after they won a World Series.

[Seth Payne]

Right. But they also. Wait, they made moves in the interim.

[Sean Pendergast]

My point is, I think this is gonna be a more conventional. We're firing these two guys, and we're hiring. I think this. This is gonna look a little bit more like. I think, like, the new GM would be in place, like, by, like. No, like, November, December, like usual. That was in, like, March, like the.

[Seth Payne]

Dana got, you know, like in college football, you know, Cole, like, it's like, when you go to hire a coach, if you fire a coach and you want to hire, like, the. The right way to do it is you've got 10 guys lined up already that, you know, so, like, you've got a plan. So, like, likewise, in that this time, it feels like, all right, it's going to be more of a typical scenario where maybe they're making their plans two months ahead.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes. Yeah, that's. That's kind of my point.

[Cole Thompson]

Can I spend this to you guys? How enticing is the GM job if you allow Dana to make trades at the deadline? Because if you do have contracts that you have to get signed long term, like Jeremy Pena, you're on Alvarez, Hunter Brown.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Well, what if one of them gets moved?

[Sean Pendergast]

I. Boy, if one of them gets traded, then I've already come to grips with the fact that Hunter Brown and Jeremy Pena aren't going to be here long term. That's kind of how I feel about it. So I don't know. That doesn't. I still think I would be looking at it the way Seth's talking about, which is, what is the lower level, the minor league look like? If you were looking at the Astros job back when Luno got hired, and I know there were no Penas or Hunter Browns on the roster, they had stripped it totally down at that point. I'm sure Jeff Ludo was looking at the guys who are already there and the opportunity to pick their own guys for the next.

[Seth Payne]

Well, that's the thing, though, too, as far as how do people in baseball view the organization compared to back when they were really humming along, you know, when there was that story about how they're going to need to restrict what you can do with the iPads in the dugout the last week and in the story, it said about a third of teams were doing this. And we. I think we just wondered, like, in the past, we would have figured, oh, yeah, the Astros are definitely doing that.

[Sean Pendergast]

Absolutely.

[Seth Payne]

They've got some kind of a technological advantage, like, totally above board, not illegal Now, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what people look at when it came to young pitchers saying, okay, well, I either want to go to Tampa or I want to go to Houston because I know that they're going to develop me. I don't know if they feel that way anymore.

[Sean Pendergast]

I can't imagine they do.

[Seth Payne]

So likewise for managers who used to look at the Astros as, oh, man, you go in there and you got all these things that are helping you. And not to mention the talent on the field. I just don't. I don't know if they feel that way anymore.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah. And do. Then what type of GM do they hire?

[Seth Payne]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

Do they hire someone who subscribes to that or do they hire a baseball guy?

[Cole Thompson]

But like, let's say that you do want to make some trades and build this thing from the ground up, actually wave the white flag and emit rebuild. You have to have pieces that are willing to be able to be traded.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

So that's why you want to keep a Hunter Brown or a Jeremy Pena, because of if you're the new GM making the call.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

At least you have a say on what you're getting back in return.

[Sean Pendergast]

I can flip those guys. Yeah, no, I get. I get what you're saying. All right, let's get to this question of the day. We've been doing this 10 days leading up to training camp. This is number eight. So we've been doing it at this time each day. If you want to go back and listen to the previous questions, you can go back and listen on the Pain and Pender Gas podcast on the Free Odyssey app. Cole, you've been putting these questions up. So what is the question of the day today?

[Cole Thompson]

Will the new Derek Barnett please stand up?

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, so, so lay out the Derek Barnett part of this.

[Cole Thompson]

Derek Barnett, to me was the most unsung hero on the Texans defensive line because of if you didn't have a Will Anderson for a game or Daniel Hunter needed a drive off, you had somebody that could fill in and be a quality number three defensive end.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

And I think that a lot of people don't look at the stat lines because of, well, you got two all pro world class defensive ends coming off at the edge. Why do we care about that third guy? Just in case of injuries, just in case of somebody needs a break here or there, you need that extra player because of. That's been a strength of you. And there were rumors going into the draft that the Texans were at least going to be interested in adding in another defensive end. Not for anything more than situational pass rushing. Where are you right now? Replacing a guy that while here for only two years, I mean two and a half years was productive. Finished number three in sacks on the team two straight years. Number three on the team in quarterback hits.

[Seth Payne]

Latte for Keenan.

[Cole Thompson]

That's me.

[Sean Pendergast]

Hey, you're yeah. Buying a car online on Autotrader. Really?

[Seth Payne]

But unlike other sites, you can start online, test drive with a local dealer, then finish online or at the dealership.

[Cole Thompson]

Cool. Enjoy.

[Seth Payne]

Buy your car online on autotrader.

[Cole Thompson]

Really?

[Seth Payne]

Introducing the all new MLB. Your ticket to streaming baseball's best.

[Sean Pendergast]

Let's go.

[Seth Payne]

Enjoy MLB Network 247 with live out of market games and award winning shows. Enhanced game nights with MLB Big inning live and commercial free and hear live home and away radio broadcasts of every game. Blackout free. Even stream minor league games all season.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's all here and it's all new.

[Seth Payne]

Get MLB plus for just $59.99 a year. Visit MLB Dot

[Sean Pendergast]

would you look at that. It's time for some of our favorite snapple reelfacts. Real fact 1433 Toe wrestling is a competitive sport. Reopac732 the chicken is the closest living relative of the Tyrannosaurus Rex and Rio back 1599aman once ate an entire airplane. Yowch. Did he have any hot sauce?

[Seth Payne]

Yep.

[Sean Pendergast]

So anyways, this has been a refreshing break. Brought to you by Snapple Real Tea, Real juice with snapsolutely refreshing. Presented by T Mobile, the official wireless partner of Odyssey Sports. With an awesome network and great savings. There's never been a better time to join T Mobile. Visit your neighborhood store to make the switch today.

[Cole Thompson]

Three straight years and top five tackles for losses.

[Sean Pendergast]

Three straight years scored a couple touchdowns.

[Seth Payne]

And it's not just injuries either. I mean they just rotate their defensive linemen. So Denico Autry and Derek Barnett had about 500 to 600 combined snaps last year. I think that for right now, the I share your concern. Cole, Sean and I have talked about this a good amount and the thing I always try to remind myself is, man, we get into the same deal with the defensive tackles where every year, you know, the Texans, a few years ago they signed Sheldon Rankins and people were like, ah, Sheldon Rankins. Sheldon Rankins leaves in free agency and people are up in arms. I can't believe they let Sheldon Rankins walk. I can't believe. Because these guys come in and they tend to do their best work on this defensive line in this defense. And Derek Barnett was the same way. I mean, he was picked up off the scrap heap in Philly and wasn't doing all that much in Philly, got to Houston and the lights went on for him. And he's been a really valuable contributor over the last couple years. I think for now, Dominique Robinson is the most intriguing one because he's got all of the physical traits of a guy that maybe just hasn't reached his potential. And I think they want to see him during training camp and figure out what they think they have in him. And then the other guy, too is Logan hall, who on first and second down especially can go out and play defensive end if they're concerned about stopping the run. One thing the Texans have done a really good job of on first downs is just like being they stop the run. If there's a pass, it's not going to be a first down. They get everything to second down and then you worry about rushing the passer. They've got a lot of guys right now that can be out there on first and second down. They're not as good as Daniel Hunter, Will Anderson, but will those guys get a blow? They can. They can get him into a good third down situation. So that's. That's where I am. And I'm kind of at a. I'm cautiously optimistic that you're going to see the best version of Dominique Robinson. If you watch his highlight reel, you'd think, oh, this guy's guy's all pro. He's just hasn't been as consistent.

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, we should point out that when the. The question is, will the new Derek Barnett please stand up that the actual Derek Barnett is still out there.

[Seth Payne]

Right, Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

So he's. He's still out there. Potentially.

[Seth Payne]

As a solution, I would guess Derek Barnett at his age. I think he's 33.

[Cole Thompson]

I think he's 30, actually.

[Seth Payne]

Is he only 30?

[Cole Thompson]

He's a young 20. He was 20 when he got drafted out of Tennessee.

[Seth Payne]

Really?

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, he was a young player.

[Sean Pendergast]

Derek Barnett's 30.

[Seth Payne]

He's only 30.

[Sean Pendergast]

He just turned 30.

[Seth Payne]

So I think he's looking at it

[Sean Pendergast]

as Derek Barnett was played. He was 29 last year when he played. He looked. He's got that look. He's bald and he's got the big

[Seth Payne]

beard, kind of a Paredes.

[Sean Pendergast]

He looks like he's like 41.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, Paredes. People are always shocked that Paredes is in his 20s or something like that. 27, I think.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, 35.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

So. So he's still out There. And I think his best fit, where, you know, he's going to at least be productive for what they want, is probably right here. But he's only 30. He probably. He wants to be a starter somewhere.

[Cole Thompson]

Sure.

[Seth Payne]

And I'm guessing he's just waiting for a potential opportunity. But I would also guess that the Texans maybe have checked in on him and that at some point, if either they up the offer or if Derek Barnett realizes, all right, we're a couple of weeks into camp and nobody's calling, I'll just go ahead and sign with the Texans. I think, yeah, he's a. He's a very, very viable option.

[Sean Pendergast]

So the. The guys that we've talked about outside of Derek Barnett that aren't in the building, they aren't in anybody's buildings right now. Who are the ones that are still out there? Is Joey Bosa still out there?

[Seth Payne]

Joey Bosa still out there.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay. Is Jadevian Clowney still clown.

[Seth Payne]

Still out there?

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay.

[Seth Payne]

Clowney still very stout run defender we just talked about. Okay. What do you do on first down? Yeah, yeah. Clowney's the most intriguing one to me.

[Sean Pendergast]

I like the Clowney idea.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, yeah, I know. And I think the whole thing about clowning, like, clowning and Bill o' Brien would always chafe a little bit, and it was. The stories you'd always hear is like, okay, look, he plays his ass off on Sundays. He 100% does. I think that people that thought that he didn't have a good motor or anything. I hope that the first time you saw him hawk a wide receiver 30 yards downfield, you realize he plays really hard on Sunday as a younger player. He didn't necessarily check off all the other boxes when it came to, you know, being a certain type of way at practice in the building. I think, for one, we don't know how he is in that regard now because we haven't seen him in a long time.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right.

[Seth Payne]

But the other thing is, too, he's also at an age where you want to. Those guys, your defensive linemen who are well into their 30s, you're trying to load. Manage them anyway, and it might just be not that much of a factor. Yeah, he's always been a good dude. He just wasn't. Like, he didn't have those J.J. watt attributes of.

[Sean Pendergast]

They checked in on Terry and Arnold last week. Right. What's Clowny ever done?

[Seth Payne]

You know what? I'll allow it. Usually you'll say, like, hey, this guy's never been arrested or anything. And I'm like, come on, Is that our bar, really?

[Cole Thompson]

Well, Terry and Arnold's actually the new bar.

[Seth Payne]

There are a lot of guys that have been arrested who are like a lot of the guys who usually it's the guys, the guys who claim, hey, I've never been arrested. That's a red flag. Okay. If you think that's what the standard is like. No, there are a lot of guys who have been arrested a bunch of times, but who are awesome football citizens and do everything the right way. On the football side, two other names

[Cole Thompson]

out there are Vaughn Miller and Hassan Redick as well. Those are other defense fans.

[Seth Payne]

Those guys are interesting because, you know, like I was just saying, I think they want. They want guys who can roll in on first and second down. But your heavy hitters as pass rushers are Daniel Hunter and Will Anderson.

[Cole Thompson]

Sure.

[Seth Payne]

So with Redick and Von Miller, they don't really fit the system other than if they're going to come in and be a pure pass rusher. And I don't. You don't really have a need for them right now unless they just. That's what they want to do. But they're just, they don't really fit the mold of this defense.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

If you can get them in a bargain and be a guy that's there and you can come in and rush them rotationally and especially if there's an injury. Sure. But I just don't think that's the best fit.

[Sean Pendergast]

The injury. The injury thing's interesting. Real quick, where are we? Will Anderson played all 17 games last

[Cole Thompson]

year, last year, but he missed two games the year before and he missed

[Sean Pendergast]

three the year before that.

[Cole Thompson]

So he's five total.

[Sean Pendergast]

And it was always with an ankle.

[Seth Payne]

It was the Steph Curry dynamic.

[Sean Pendergast]

It was always.

[Seth Payne]

And I was hop. Last year was the first year of the Steph Curry, like. Oh, he figured out his ankle issues.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, a lot of it.

[Seth Payne]

You know, you work on ankle. You're on those wobble boards all off season and everything. You work on your ankle flexion.

[Sean Pendergast]

So what's. So as a former professional athlete, what's your concern level over this ankle thing with Will Anderson? Is it behind him now?

[Seth Payne]

I had ankle issues when I was a young player too, and I do I there, there, there's a lot that you can do to just strengthen them and stabilize them that I don't, I don't worry about it being a chronic thing. Like, I don't think we were just lucky last year.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, I don't think so either. Yeah, I do that. This is a, this Is bigger than the question you were asking, Colby.

[Seth Payne]

To be clear, I didn't have quite as much force flowing through my ankles when I ran as well. Anderson.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

So you can't find many highlights of me. Turn in the corner on the edge. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they were.

[Sean Pendergast]

I just. I'll point this out just real quick. Quick. They were really lucky with injuries last year on the defensive side of the ball.

[Seth Payne]

The Texans, you know, they did the big ones. I mean, Jalen Petrie in the middle of the season, and that was.

[Sean Pendergast]

He missed three. And nobody else missed more than one, I don't think.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. Out of the core guys. And then Kamari at the end of the season, you know that. That one. Was it one or two series versus the Chargers.

[Sean Pendergast]

It was six.

[Seth Payne]

It was six snaps and everything fell apart. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

You also, like 60.

[Seth Payne]

You also had a street free agent playing next to him at safety, too, which that was. Yeah, I forgot my good pad. That was. I mean. And you know what? We say that they had good luck with injuries. They did. Except that it was a turnstile at safety. I mean, they're just. It was player after player either. Yet C.J. gardner, Johnson, who is just doing his own thing. You had Reed, who's a rookie, getting injured. You have multiple guys in there.

[Sean Pendergast]

All right, let's. Let's get to headlines coming up next year. We'll do that. Astros swept this weekend. They did make a couple personnel moves, including. If you're looking for a reason to watch tonight's game other than they're still hanging around on the edge of the standings here for the playoffs, we've got one for you. We had a World cup final yesterday. LeBron watch still going on. We'll get to all that in headlines Coming up next.

[Seth Payne]

Pain and Pendergast with today's headlines. I wonder if there's a tricky door scenario Cole might be stuck trying to get.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, well, we got to do headlines.

[Seth Payne]

Okay.

[Sean Pendergast]

So he's going to be stuck.

[Seth Payne]

You want to be on solo and I go try to get him, or. No, no, we'll be okay.

[Sean Pendergast]

I think you and I can do headlines. Yeah, we'll be all right. If he's that door, you just got to jiggle it a little bit. Yeah, it'll be all right. He'll be okay.

[Seth Payne]

I had a dream that I couldn't get a key to work last night. This is reminding me here. Yeah, it was a premonition, probably. For the difficulties that Cole is having.

[Sean Pendergast]

Your dream is being projected on him right now.

[Seth Payne]

You know, when you Got a tricky key situ. You know when somebody gives you a key to their house but they didn't tell you? They don't tell you that. It's a tricky key situation. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

You gotta kind of flick it to the left a little bit, but you

[Seth Payne]

have no idea if you just have the wrong key or not.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

So you end up. Yeah, and he's got my key fob,

[Sean Pendergast]

so he's got the proper artillery to get in. But let's just you and I do headlines, and we'll figure the rest out.

[Seth Payne]

I was just filibustering just in case I. Maybe I had the details wrong and the Astros actually won a game.

[Sean Pendergast]

No, no, no, no. We're still waiting on a win, man. It's been over a week now since they. Since they won a baseball game. And so. Yeah, it's not like they went into the break on a. On a tear or anything like that. They get swept by the orioles this weekend, 5 to 2 yesterday. So 3 to 2 on Friday, 4 to 2 on Saturday, and 11 innings,

[Seth Payne]

I didn't look at 5 to 2. If anybody's tuning in and didn't. Didn't get to hear how disgusted Sean and Cole and I were early on. I don't want to lose that energy or that passion. This was disgusting. This was ridiculously, annoyingly, decrepit baseball. And it was. You know, the. The most frustrating thing was on Saturday when you had the two circumstances. One where Yiner, on a play where there's a ball hit to El Tuve. It's a. It's a. There's a. There's a man on third, and Altuve.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's on second.

[Seth Payne]

Excuse me. On second. On second. Yeah. And second. He'd get to third very quickly.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

And Altuve. Stop. Yeah, Altuve, like, probably isn't going to make the play, but, like, has no chance to try to make the throw at home because Yiner is just standing randomly as a spectator on the first base.

[Sean Pendergast]

Umpire's not going to catch that ball and tag the guy.

[Seth Payne]

And then on the very last at bat, Zach disenzo. On his third strike, the. The catcher drops the ball and is scrambling for the ball. And Disenzo is A, unaware that the ball's on the ground, and B, just doesn't even make any kind of an effort. He's just slowly walking towards the dugout like his mentor, Christian Walker. Yeah, that's what made me angriest about that. I'm looking at him like, disenzo. What the hell are you doing? You're in no position to act like Joe Vet here. Be a vet vet and be lazy here. Get your ass to first base. And then I remembered, oh, yeah, he's pinch hitting for or he's in for Christian Walker. And this is what Christian Walker does. He mopes. He mopes.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's just trying to do a reasonable facsimile.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Of Christian. When he's trying to be the best Christian Walker that he can be.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Zach disenzo. So the Astros get swept by the Orioles. They are now four games out of the division. They are four and a half games out of the wild card. This thing feels like it's slipping away a little bit as far as transactions go over the weekend. Brian King, who's been just horrible of late, he can go be horrible for Sugar Land. The Space Cowboys, that's where they sent him yesterday. Renell Blanco is back tonight. If you're looking for a reason that now that is. Look, I'm gonna watch anyways because I'm, you know, this is the. The life we've chosen and they're still in the hunt. And I just. I like sit. I like the routine of sitting down and watching baseball games. Games. Unpleasant as it may have been over the weekend, this is intriguing for me tonight. Renell Blanco on the mound for the first time since he had Tommy John surgery 14 months ago. This is a good reason to watch tonight's game. So similar to when Rene Blanco star first began to rise. If you recall, the first start Renell Blanco had in 2024 followed a sweep by the Yankees of the Astros to open the season. What happened? Renell Blanco no hitter.

[Seth Payne]

That's right.

[Sean Pendergast]

Can he stop the bleeding tonight with a no hitter throwing only 75.

[Seth Payne]

We're. We're in a second season in a row where it feels like the big. The big. The big trade acquisition might be. Hey, guys. Returning from the aisle.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, yeah. Was Neski might be back by Friday.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Another one of big. Dana Brown's big. Look, that was part of the. The mega trade there and all trade.

[Cole Thompson]

It was fine.

[Seth Payne]

I also, by the way, I don't. I. You know, we should start doing. While the Astros, at least while they're performing the way they did this weekend. I don't like with the expanded playoffs saying that they're four and a half games out of the playoffs. Let's call it what it is. Like they're five and a half games out of the wild card without the expanded playoffs.

[Cole Thompson]

So five teams then.

[Seth Payne]

What's that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which Is right now, it's not that big of a difference, but I.

[Cole Thompson]

This.

[Seth Payne]

The expanded playoffs make it feel like they've deluded all of these fan bases like our own into thinking like, oh, we're only a few games out of

[Sean Pendergast]

the wild card and the better team than you realize or think the problem is They've. Yeah, they've diluted all these fan bases, and the Astros feel like one of the most dilutable teams out of all these teams. You know, that they're. They're not going to take a good look at themselves and say, you know what? Maybe we should be a little more pragmatic. All right, headlines. World cup is over. Spain, 1, Argentina nothing. Yesterday, Argentina got a red card late in regulation. In this game, Spain had the pressure. Most of that game was played down in Argentina's end of the field. It was an exciting game. Spain takes that one nothing lead in. In extra time, in the second half of extra time, and. And Argentina was putting the pressure on at the end of this game. They had a bunch of chances to tie this game and send it to penalty kicks, and they did not. So congratulations to Spain, World cup winner.

[Seth Payne]

I feel like we probably have more.

[Sean Pendergast]

You won the pool, by the way.

[Seth Payne]

I did. I did. I did. Well, this is what happens, because you know what? I grew up on the. On the streets of Farmington playing futsal instead of going one of these fancy, you know, pay to play soccer academies. That was a little, you know, you play with a smaller ball, which is. This is where. In Farmington and in Brazil, the. The kids played in the streets. They did. Yeah. So I didn't, you know, I didn't.

[Sean Pendergast]

Barefoot.

[Seth Payne]

I didn't have these rich kids, rich parents that would send me up to some highfalutin soccer academy.

[Sean Pendergast]

You didn't have shoes?

[Seth Payne]

No, no.

[Sean Pendergast]

No shin guards, nothing like that.

[Cole Thompson]

You have a kit that you were wearing on. On Saturdays for practice.

[Seth Payne]

Right, right. And it was done at Goodwill, and that's why. Good at that soccer pool.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Seth Payne]

I won it before they even played yesterday. I know.

[Sean Pendergast]

You routed everybody so crazy.

[Cole Thompson]

Do you guys want to hear a crazy stat that I believe until I read it?

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes. Crazy stack. Cole.

[Cole Thompson]

In this past playoff run for Spain, they won five games. They also did not. Knockout run. They won five games. They did not allow a single goal. They have more wins on American soil in this playoff run than the Dallas Cowboys have since 2000.

[Sean Pendergast]

More playoff wins.

[Cole Thompson]

Yes.

[Seth Payne]

I like that for you, Spain. I like that. I'm happy for them.

[Sean Pendergast]

I like any of these stats that make fun of teams that aren't my teams. Like when.

[Seth Payne]

So they're more of America's team.

[Sean Pendergast]

In terms of playoff wins, would you see the.

[Cole Thompson]

The Falcons won. Like how many teams have won a playoff game in their building before the Falcons.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. The Falcons have never won a playoff game. Mercedes Benz Stadium.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, really?

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. There's been like they did like Atlanta fc. They did multiple college football playoff teams. They did England in one game. It was like a laundry list of teams.

[Sean Pendergast]

There's a bunch of locations.

[Seth Payne]

They gotta hurry up because by modern standards, that stadium is about to get replaced. It's almost a decade old, isn't it?

[Sean Pendergast]

Atlanta ain't afraid to replace stadiums either.

[Cole Thompson]

So what happens first? TUA gets better. They announced the new stadium getting built.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Stadium.

[Cole Thompson]

Yes. The answer. Yes.

[Sean Pendergast]

So, yeah. The one I liked was Argentina paying tribute to the jets by not scoring at MetLife's yesterday. That was funny. Funny. All right. LeBron watch continues. Nothing at Fanatics. That's from over the weekend. The only thing we got at Fanatics Fest, it was of note.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, the week. Was it Fanatics Fest. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

It was Cam Scatterbo doing a back hand back, a flip.

[Seth Payne]

Not a handspring, a flip, a backflip. And not nailing the landing.

[Sean Pendergast]

No.

[Seth Payne]

Looking kind of precarious. Coming off of a pretty bad injury and surgery last year. Yeah, yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Pretty bad injury. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, Scatterbo now. I saw an interview he did later in the weekend at Fanatics Fest. Apparently he was there a couple of times and apparent the. The back flip that he did was I think on a WWE stage.

[Seth Payne]

So was it.

[Sean Pendergast]

It was like a rain, a little springy. He said he wasn't expecting.

[Seth Payne]

Is that. Oh, that's what screwed up. Hey, don't worry, everybody. I was doing it on an unfamiliar. In an unfamiliar environment.

[Sean Pendergast]

What an idiot. We got Scatterbo audio we'll get to later.

[Seth Payne]

He's going to be a beautiful comet across the sky for two or three years in the NFL. He'll be a trivia question within a few years.

[Sean Pendergast]

Watching Cam Scatterbo and Jackson Dart do a sit down with somebody.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

And the camera's just kind of panning back and forth between the two. And Jackson darts got this ball cap on. That's just. It looks stupid. It just looks. Maybe I'm being a boomer. It looks. He looks stupid. Basically, Cam Scatterbo sounds stupid. I'm like, if I were a Giants fan, I don't know what I would think. Right.

[Seth Payne]

I kind of like them I feel like they're a throwback to just dumb jocks, you know, like everybody's gotten so smart these days. Give me a couple of dumb jocks.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's okay to like them. I'm just glad they're not the team I'm rooting for.

[Seth Payne]

Well known. That's the interesting thing is why by the time the Texans play the Giants, where are these dumb jocks and how are they progressing?

[Cole Thompson]

Where is he even on the field at this point? Where is he injured?

[Seth Payne]

Well, talk about meatheads. Look seriously like Scatterboat. Super meathead.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

And then Jackson dart forever. All offseason was saying, I'm not changing the way I play. Nope. I'm going to keep running. John Harbaugh got to him because the last time I watched him in an interview, he said it was during the OTAs or minicamps. He said, yeah, I gotta, I gotta learn, you know, to. I was about to say use discretion. He didn't use that word.

[Sean Pendergast]

Me, use discretion. All right, 7 o' clock hour coming up. All right. Does CJ Stroud, who's been a big topic this offseason, does he have the chance to how soon does C.J. stroud have the chance to shut up his doubters for 2026, 2026? Or do we have to wait for the playoffs for that to happen? And Warren Moon was on this station yesterday with Zach, Elb and B. Scott and had some interesting things to say about the criticism of CJ Stroud. We'll discuss that coming up next station.

[Seth Payne]

The Texans play here.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

DJ mixes it up on social media.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

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

[Cole Thompson]

Right.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Cole Thompson]

Sexy Dexy.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, with Dexter Lawrence there.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, let me, let me rephrase it then.

[Seth Payne]

Do I think he will do well?

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

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

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, they're at home. Okay. So emotionally. Yeah, I don't. I can't lose the opener emotionally. I can't lose the latte for Keenan.

[Cole Thompson]

That's me.

[Sean Pendergast]

Hey, you're.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Buying a car online on Autotrader. Really?

[Seth Payne]

But unlike other sites, you can start online, test drive with a local dealer, then finish online or at the dealership.

[Cole Thompson]

Cool. Enjoy.

[Seth Payne]

Buy your car online on Autotrader.

[Cole Thompson]

Really?

[Sean Pendergast]

Did you know that There are over 200 legends like Andrew Jones, Albert Pujols, Felix Hernandez and Ken Griffey Jr.

[Seth Payne]

In MLB the Show 26.

[Sean Pendergast]

Collect them all and current all stars to build your perfect lineup.

[Seth Payne]

MLB the Show 26 is available now

[Sean Pendergast]

on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series XS and Nintendo Switch. Rated E for everyone. Officially licensed by MLB Players Inc. Would

[Seth Payne]

you look at that.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's time for some of our favorite Snapple reel facts. Real fact 1433 Toe wrestling is a competitive sport. Reopac 732, the chicken is the closest living relative of the tyrannosaurus rex. And reopac 1599. A man once ate an entire airplane. Yowch. Did he have any hot sauce?

[Seth Payne]

Yep.

[Sean Pendergast]

So anyways, this has been a refreshing break. Brought to you by Snapple. Real tea, real juice with snaps and refreshing. Presented by T Mobile, the official wireless partner of Odyssey Sports. With an awesome network and great savings, there's never been a better time to join T Mobile. Visit your neighborhood store to make the switch today.

[Seth Payne]

I'm Susie Welch, the host of Becoming youg a podcast where I help you

[Cole Thompson]

stop living by default and start living by design. Listen to Becoming youg wherever you get your podcasts.

[Sean Pendergast]

The opener I can't lose the opener

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay.

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

The question is, do I Pender poll this one? This is made for a Twitter poll, right? We got four choices. Okay, I'm going to Pender poll this.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Who do you think wins?

[Seth Payne]

I think Dallas.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

All right, so it won't be Dallas.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

Cincinnati.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

division because then you're one in one also. So it's okay. That means that you would have beat

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

No, no. I was actually going to say. Yeah, I kind of phrased it in a way where I was. I thought you might say, like, actually I'd be Indianapolis. I probably should have said very clearly I'm the one saying I don't want to lose a division game. Yeah, yeah, you would be okay.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

It works out fun being three and oh, at home too. Texas four games.

[Cole Thompson]

Text line seems pretty split right now. Emotionally losing to the Cowboys is not a good option. But the big picture and NFC game.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Is the easy choice losing over Buffalo or Cincinnati. Two other people are saying I'd be okay going 3 and 1 and losing to Cincinnati. Can't lose the Cowboys.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

No, I think the. Has it gone too far? I think it's. I don't think it's unfair when you play as badly as he did in the playoffs. But I think it's also important to remember there were quarterbacks who had better regular seasons than CJ Stroud early in their careers who faced the same scrutiny, like Peyton Manning. It was a. Young people would be shocked to know that the. The narrative on Peyton Manning was that he's just awful in the playoffs and he was never going to. He was never going to win the big one because he's just not that guy, you know? And then over time, he figured it out and it's. But he was.

[Sean Pendergast]

He.

[Seth Payne]

He did have much better regular seasons and more impressions, impressive regular seasons than C.J. stroud's had the last couple years. Yeah, it's. People remember very well the last thing he did and the last thing he did was just an absolutely horrendous performance.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, I. Has a criticism gone too far for C.J. stroud? I like. I don't know that. To me, the criticism that goes too far are the people who are like, he's. He's a. He's a bomb. He's a bust. He sucks. They need to move on now from C.J. stroud.

[Seth Payne]

Like, that's.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's one where you gotta look at how the other half lives.

[Cole Thompson]

Let's Talk Davis Mills 2.0 Resurgence. That's where we are.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, that's right.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

Including the Texans, it would appear.

[Seth Payne]

Right. Right. Yeah. They didn't just throw a lot of cash at them.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right.

[Seth Payne]

Think. And it's. Which is the smart move now, there. There could still be. Who knows if there's an announcement out of nowhere that they've come to an extent. I think. I think if there was news that. I think if there was news that they had extended. C.J. stroud. If you took a poll, if you did a Pender poll immediately afterwards, before anybody had any details, I think people would be down on that.

[Sean Pendergast]

I think so, too.

[Seth Payne]

The majority would be down.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

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

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Seth Payne]

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

[Cole Thompson]

No, it was mediocre.

[Seth Payne]

It got to, it got to be respectable.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Cole Thompson]

cool with, but need more than 23 touchdowns.

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, the problem.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, we'll see, man. It's a training camp is nine days away. First practice is a week from Wednesday this week. All right, let's get to Acknowledge me. Let's acknowledge some big performances from over the weekend, weekend, last couple of weeks. In case of the World Cup, I will say a name, and Byron Matthews, who's our producer today, will hit Roman Reigns saying, acknowledge me. If you got some acknowledgments you want. You want to text in, you can do that. 7, 1, 3, 5 7, 2, 4, 6, 10. I'm gonna acknowledge first in general, the World Cup. It's now over. And let's acknowledge Spain for becoming the team to allow the least amount of goals in a run to a World cup championship. They allowed one goal in the entire World Cup. Spain. Did they beat Argentina 1 nothing yesterday. I'll get to some general thoughts on the World Cup. You know what I want to acknowledge also. Byron Seth Payne for winning the. The pool, the Sports Radio 610 World cup going away.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

No discernible prize.

[Seth Payne]

Cole, since you're our hockey expert here in the studio, what's a. Well, Sean, you might be too. Sorry. You're both smarter about hockey than that. Not to Cole's nickname. What's the difference between, like, a soccer goalie and an NHL goalie in terms of value to your team?

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Seth Payne]

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

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, he was amazing.

[Seth Payne]

Did you think I was asking what's the difference between a goal, like an actual goal? Yeah, it's like it's a much larger

[Sean Pendergast]

net, you know, you know, just size, dimensions, not that much of a hockey.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Can I just. I know this has acknowledged me where we're highlighting the positive. Often times in any sport it's fun to play the non English speaking version of, of scoring play like I love playing like, you know, here is the Bolivian call on the home run to win the World Series, that kind of thing. This was the. You would think this would be a pretty basic one. This is the Telemundo call of Ferran Torres game winning goal in extra time yesterday. That's fun. Okay, so he said go. Oh, he's doing it again. Okay. Okay. So just for sake of time, he went on to do that one more time after that. That clip is actually the one I Gave Byron is 57 seconds. Seconds long.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

And it's just him basically saying goal for as long as he can. Can I just say this? And I again, I love non English speaking calls of sports highlights. I feel like foreign announcers have this. Especially Spanish speaking soccer announcers have an extra level of energy. I even tweeted during when I was on vacation watching the World Cup, I watched some of the games on Telemundo without knowing a single word of Spanish. Just because their energy level the whole game, every pass in the midfield is a big deal. The whole thing of just saying goal for as long as you can without taking a breath. A little overrated.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

I didn't even play the longest one.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

I think you're. Yeah, go.

[Sean Pendergast]

No.

[Cole Thompson]

So. So Andres Cantor was the guy who

[Seth Payne]

was on the call.

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

So that's his deal.

[Cole Thompson]

It's like a whole bit with him.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Cole Thompson]

I'll just can tour.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay. All right. You know what? I'll get to biggest casual fan memories from the World cup later in the show. Needless to say, there are several. We'll get to that a little bit later. One more World Cup. Acknowledge me, Jamie.

[Seth Payne]

Acknowledge me.

[Sean Pendergast]

Let me say his name. Byron Daniel. It Jamie o'. Hara. He is the co host of a show called the Sports Bar on Talk Sport in England. He's a former professional soccer player. Had a phenomenal rant at the end of last week that came down after we had gone off the air or at least after I'd seen it. I think transcribed. This rant would be like an 8 1/2 out of 10. Now keep in mind, they cover the English soccer team, the British soccer team, who lost to Messi and Argentina arena in the semifinals. And apparently the coach for England was getting skewered for some of his substituting decisions, including by Jamie O'.

[Seth Payne]

Hara.

[Sean Pendergast]

This is an 8 1/2 out of 10. If I were to just read it, this is like a 12 out of 10 when you apply a foreign accent to it to me.

[Seth Payne]

So you could almost accept it.

[Cole Thompson]

I know you're playing against Argentina.

[Sean Pendergast]

You can't sit off for 25 minutes against Argentina.

[Seth Payne]

He absolutely bottled it. Thomas Tuchel's cost us the World World Cup. They cost us the World Cup.

[Sean Pendergast]

We're one nil up. Played well first off. All right, KG affair. We go one nil up. Be brave. Be brave, Thomas. This is what we brought you in for.

[Seth Payne]

We brought you in for this moment.

[Sean Pendergast]

We got rid of Southgate because he bottled it because he weren't brave. We brought you in for now to make that decision.

[Seth Payne]

We're one nil up in a World cup semi final.

[Sean Pendergast]

Bring on Rashford.

[Seth Payne]

Bring on Saka.

[Sean Pendergast]

And if they score, they score.

[Seth Payne]

But at least we're gonna go down fighting.

[Sean Pendergast]

At least we're gonna go down with some pride.

[Seth Payne]

We fell out of the World cup

[Sean Pendergast]

in disgrace because of him. Because of him. And we brought him in for this job. This is what we brought him in for, to get us over this line. And it's the same old England, same old crap. Okay, so we're good.

[Seth Payne]

A bunch of worthless blokes.

[Sean Pendergast]

Are you with me on this?

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

Is he saying bottled it up?

[Sean Pendergast]

Bottled it up?

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, it bottled it up.

[Sean Pendergast]

Bottled it up.

[Seth Payne]

There's a cagey affair. Affair.

[Cole Thompson]

You want to. Who I think is going to be the closest to this in the American style. Anytime Lane Kiffin loses a game out at LSU and you have the people to buy you making the Cajun people the Cajun people.

[Sean Pendergast]

Because that's a good call.

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

I want to bring in English people to complain about the same thing.

[Sean Pendergast]

Let's do a little fan swap.

[Seth Payne]

Can we flip it, though?

[Cole Thompson]

The cages can play.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's fan swap. You know, we're gonna do it. It's like a show where they swap. They swap wives.

[Seth Payne]

See how the LSU lads do this weekend. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Should I be railing on the postgame show for the Texans in a British accent this year? Jamaica, Boston.

[Seth Payne]

You bald it Cagey affair with the Colts. You should do it if it's. If things really turn south, you just start making something. Yeah. You just said we're going to do English today. We'll do Scottish tomorrow.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

Were.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

You know that's my thing.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

But you're not going to do the same thing that you did with Burrows then where you said, hey man, it's spring training. No, hey man, it's the summer league.

[Seth Payne]

Is what I was expecting you to say baked in. It's not like a prediction of greatness or anything because he had a really good summary.

[Sean Pendergast]

I'm not predicting the same level of

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

I said, here it comes.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

Exactly. Exactly how I sounded.

[Cole Thompson]

Two plays Devil advocate. I was with shot on this one. I was all Mike Burrows.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, everything.

[Cole Thompson]

Cy Young award winner. Now let me put pivot this way

[Seth Payne]

because it usually ends up being like 13 innings of work. Like the equivalent of good games.

[Cole Thompson]

We would learn. Here, let me throw it this way. Remember how excited we were with Reed shepherd after summer ball?

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, I do.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, that's a.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

What are you. What are you talking about, Bruce?

[Cole Thompson]

When, When Nikola Jokic got drafted, there was a Taco Bell commercial that flashed across the screen because it was a second round pick. Oh. And so every time that I wait to see like a food commercial, I'm like, that's going to be the next Nikola Jokic.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, really?

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

I never heard that story.

[Seth Payne]

Should we acknowledge the MLB salary cap ads?

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. Okay.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes. Yeah, go ahead.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Cole Thompson]

No, I haven't.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

It's wild.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

Do you think they told.

[Seth Payne]

It's like a political action committee type thing.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

You might sign a waiver of some sort. But I wonder.

[Sean Pendergast]

You might wind up on what amounts to a baseball political act.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

am, I'm just picturing these. I'm like, it skews very heavily like towards like, I'm Rob Manfred and I approve this message.

[Cole Thompson]

Right?

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Cole Thompson]

I'm Rob Manfred and I approve this message.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, man. Jose Altuve refuses to stand up for the fans. Yeah, well, Rob Manfred isn't afraid, you know. You know who blew the lid off

[Sean Pendergast]

the competitive balance tax? Kyle Tucker. Oh, my God, I'm Rob Manfred. I thought the same thing yesterday. I'm like, what am I watching? What am I watching right now? All right. Pain and pander gas. Cole Thompson in with us. All right, one more. Cole, you had one.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, yeah. Just give a shout out to and let's acknowledge Peter Lambert.

[Sean Pendergast]

Peter Lambert, Come on.

[Cole Thompson]

This was a guy who was dfa, shown the door, could have gone anywhere else and said, I'll take the minor league assignment. Where would this team be right now without Peter Lambert?

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Cole Thompson]

They might be now selling completely without

[Seth Payne]

saying Peter Lambert might have ruined this franchise.

[Sean Pendergast]

We might have 10 new prospects if

[Seth Payne]

Peter Lambert hadn't shown up.

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Five walks and a 0.79 WHIP.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

Er, that's why you love Cam Smith so much.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Cole Thompson]

I'm begging for Major League Baseball voters to not name him AL Pitcher of the month. Because the last time we saw this, it was Spencer Arrogant.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

You're an astro. You do at least.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, my God.

[Cole Thompson]

Seven more Peter Joseph Lamberts, as O.J. would like to put it.

[Seth Payne]

Volume shooters.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep.

[Seth Payne]

All right.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Cole Thompson]

All right.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, yeah. I'm all caught up.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

Coming up, West Point Lincoln and West Point Lincoln of Sugarland Studios.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

It is.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Who waltzes to a Super bowl championship at the end.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep.

[Seth Payne]

Just settle. Brad. Bro. Bro. People. People. People respect you.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, I. Yeah, he annoyed me. Marcus Mariota. I'm just out on from the season he was on.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Because he quit on his team.

[Seth Payne]

Right, right, right. He was sad.

[Sean Pendergast]

He was sad.

[Seth Payne]

Quarterbacks getting sad annoy the hell out of me.

[Sean Pendergast]

The other ones I've all come away liking more than I did before I started watching the show. Joe Burrow. I like him more after quarterback Kirk Cousins, twice. Jared Goff. I came away. I was not a big Jared Goff fan. I like him. I like his wife, too. She's a lot of fun.

[Seth Payne]

Fun.

[Sean Pendergast]

As far as these. And again, I'm only three episodes in. Cole, you started in on it this weekend. How far in did you get?

[Cole Thompson]

I am now on episode four.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay. Same here. So I'm. I'm heading into four. I know you've watched a few of the episodes, at least. Seth. This is where I am. I'm curious if you guys are the same. Am I? Stock up. Stock down. Just in terms of liking guys. I am a strong trend up on Baker Mayfield after this. Yeah, I really like Baker Mayfield a lot. I wonder if with Baker, I've not liked him before.

[Seth Payne]

The sense I get with Baker is that I think he's grown and matured, probably like anybody does.

[Cole Thompson]

Sure.

[Seth Payne]

I could see where I might not like Baker when he was 21 years old.

[Sean Pendergast]

I can see.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

He's been served some humble pie.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

In his career, no doubt.

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

Do you love him even more now?

[Cole Thompson]

I love him even more.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, it's. Dude.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

That's why he screamed like a girl.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

He squealed.

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

Making obscene gestures and things.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

He's interested in me.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Cole Thompson]

Extremely boomer take.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

I don't get that. With Jaden Daniel.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Cole Thompson]

Very boring.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's Kind of boring.

[Seth Payne]

So the Odyssey, the movie is out?

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, it's.

[Cole Thompson]

I think I'm actually going.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Cole Thompson]

Do you want to.

[Seth Payne]

Agamemnon. Agamemnon. I'm looking at him. He's basically Batman. Huh?

[Cole Thompson]

That's.

[Seth Payne]

That's how they've got him. Kind of look like Batman.

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, they left it up. They left it up. Idiots. All right, two evening.

[Seth Payne]

Buyer's remorse. Buy a new car. I'll be moving in. Let's get started. Sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana. You what?

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Great price. I even have seven days to love it or return it. So there's no. No. No buyer's REM Horse. More like buyers rejoice. I guess I'll let myself out.

[Sean Pendergast]

Congratulations.

[Seth Payne]

I mean it. Buyers rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana. Limitations and exclusions may apply. See our seven day return [e-mail].

[Sean Pendergast]

you ever heard the story of Harry? He was a legend around here.

[Seth Payne]

Until one afternoon he left, never came back. Turns out Harry went and made himself a website using Squarespace. Used Squarespace domains to buy Apple artisanseatcushions.com and he built a beautiful site with

[Sean Pendergast]

an online store to sell his artisan seat cushions. Now Harry's sitting on a fortune.

[Seth Payne]

And if our Harry can do it, anyone can.

[Cole Thompson]

Build your [e-mail], use offer code, everything

[Sean Pendergast]

for 10% off your website or domain.

[Seth Payne]

Latte for Keenan.

[Cole Thompson]

That's me.

[Sean Pendergast]

Hey, you're.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Buying a car online on Autotrader. Really?

[Seth Payne]

But unlike other sites, you can start online, test drive with a local dealer, then finish online or at the dealership.

[Cole Thompson]

Cool. Enjoy.

[Seth Payne]

Buy your car online on Autotrainer.

[Cole Thompson]

Really?

[Sean Pendergast]

From high school baseball to the men's

[Seth Payne]

NCAA College World Series to mlb, and all the way to the National Baseball hall of Fame.

[Sean Pendergast]

How will you make your mark in

[Seth Payne]

MLB the Show 26. Available now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series

[Sean Pendergast]

XS, and Nintendo Switch.

[Seth Payne]

Switch. Rated E for everyone.

[Sean Pendergast]

Officially licensed by MLB Players, Inc.

[Seth Payne]

Would you look at that? It's Time for some of Our favorite

[Sean Pendergast]

Snapple Reelfax Real Fact 1433 Toe wrestling is a competitive sport. Reopack732 the chicken is the closest living relative of the Tyrannosaurus rex and reeled back 1599aman once ate an entire airplane. Y Did he have any hot sauce? Yeah, so any. This has been a refreshing break.

[Seth Payne]

Brought to you by Snapple.

[Sean Pendergast]

Real tea. Real juice with snaps and duty refreshing. Last two quarterbacks Cam Ward. Strong trend up on Cam Ward. I would really, if I were a Titans fan, I would be really in on Cam Ward. Yeah, I like Cam Ward's mom telling the story of him getting his first speeding ticket. I like that they kept the speeding tickets and put it in his scrapbook. I. I like that Cam Ward curses a lot. Lot. He's very serious. I like the Cam Ward uses a notebook. He uses an old school notebook, Seth. Just like I do to write.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

doing it is Cam.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, that's the hyper competitiveness.

[Sean Pendergast]

Even when they interviewed him afterwards, I really feel disgusted with the kids. Kids.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, hyper. Like an irrational hyper competitiveness. I really liked the part with the speeding ticket. What was that?

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

But what's the story behind it that they.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

found out about it. Parents didn't Know, but what was so

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

No, no, no. I just thought it was funny that

[Seth Payne]

his mom are gonna find out when their insurance rates.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

I liked it. Go ahead.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Cole Thompson]

Well, he compared it to a trophy.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

You feel weird to get rid of it.

[Cole Thompson]

I drove it twice.

[Seth Payne]

Someday.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Like, this is all I got.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

I totally agree with the visor.

[Seth Payne]

Right, Right. Like, it looks cool and everything, but, like, it screws up your vision and all that.

[Cole Thompson]

Yep.

[Seth Payne]

And. And then Shador wasn't having it. I'm guessing that that was like, a full three hours of content on Cleveland sports radio.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, well, Cleveland actually showed up in court. Ken Car Lyman, good morning show popped up in quarterback. That's why we need CJ to be part of this next year, so you. You and I can pop up in this thing.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Cole Thompson]

I want to say far away from Netflix right now.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, we need to get this team right.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay.

[Seth Payne]

We're going to have some cheesy new age affirmations for some of these Astros.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, good.

[Seth Payne]

We're going to get them. Right. We're going to get the. Their confidence back.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

Hey, get your pender gas.

[Sean Pendergast]

If we were to ask the question to the Astros fan base, should Joe Espada be gone? Yeah, not at the end of the season. Not after breakfast, but. But now.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, I would say right now maybe the majority think.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes, definitely think the majority.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. I'm like, I'm always kind of cherry

[Sean Pendergast]

picking to do it after they just swept.

[Seth Payne]

Well, there's also that point where you're like, all right, at some point, if you're going to do it insane season, it's got to be to provide some kind of juice.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

And if you're looking at this current roster and thinking like, okay, listen, we need to start from square one to begin with, then, not like, it's not like you're trying to tank for the draft or anything, but there might be a little bit of why bother?

[Sean Pendergast]

And if you're wondering, like, what. What's the. Like, what's the level of desperation? Purely from a record standpoint, granted, the American League and its mediocrity is keeping you. That's the thing that's keeping this team alive right now. Yeah, this is the deepest they've gone into a season and been sub.500 since before the golden era. Yeah, since 2014. And they flipped it around the last two years to where by this point, they'd won 59 games last year. They'd won 52 the year before. They've won 47 games. And there's no sign that there's a six or seven game winning streak coming anytime soon with this team. So, yeah, I think I. Maybe I'll pender poll that one, too. I got a lot of polls I got to put up today.

[Seth Payne]

So this weekend somebody said, sent me some positive affirmations. A friend of mine that you wouldn't. You wouldn't guess it'd be a positive affirmation guy, really. He's kind of a. He's kind of a beer drinker. Used to be a brawler type and everything. But it's been big for him in his life. So the old Stuart Smalley thing, you know, I'm confident I'm strong enough and people like me, gosh, are you okay right now?

[Sean Pendergast]

Did you need the affirmation?

[Seth Payne]

Oh, no, no, no. I had asked him about it. I was asking him something. We were talking about, he's in sales and I was just kind of asking him something about it. You know what the Astros need? They need some affirmations. So I got some Good New age music going here. And I'm gonna. I'm gonna take the Astros to some affirmations. Feel free to throw in.

[Sean Pendergast]

I just want you to know we only have 13 minutes left in this.

[Seth Payne]

I'm gonna. Well, let's start listening.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's a lot of people that need this stuff.

[Seth Payne]

Listen, you want your. You want your ship to get deport. You need a good captain of that ship.

[Sean Pendergast]

Sean.

[Seth Payne]

And Joe Espada desperately needed some affirmations, okay? So, Joe Espada, I want you to repeat after me. I don't have to prove to anybody that I'm smart, that I'm clever, that, gosh darn it, I'm competent. I don't have to. I don't have to pinch hit for Jordan Alvarez in a close game. I don't have to bunt like it's 1973. I'm smart enough, and people respect me for that. I also said, repeat after me, Joe Espada. I hold guys accountable.

[Cole Thompson]

I.

[Seth Payne]

When I see a young player who just struck out, but the catcher drops the ball and it's rolling in the dirt, and your. Your. Your young players should be going to first base as fast as he can. I hold guys accountable for stuff like that.

[Sean Pendergast]

Do you?

[Seth Payne]

Yes. Well, he's repeating. So that. You got any more for Espada.

[Sean Pendergast]

Do I have any more affirmations for

[Seth Payne]

Espada that he needs For Espada.

[Sean Pendergast]

You know what I would say. Say every time in a post. Repeat after me, Joe. In a post game press conference, even after a pitcher has given up.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Nine earned runs but still gave us five innings, it's okay for me to tout the five innings and ignore the nine earned runs. He did give us five innings.

[Seth Payne]

But you have to do the affirmation for what you actually want him to do. Yeah, like. Like he should say. I. I hold people accountable afterwards, too. And I'll address. I'll address. Address what the issues were I might get. So here. Joe Espada. Yeah. I'll just say it in the U. It gets too confusing. Listen, Joe, Listen, Listen, Joe, listen. These guys aren't. These guys aren't super delicate.

[Sean Pendergast]

I like the. Repeat after me, okay?

[Seth Payne]

Repeat after me, Joe. Repeat after me, Joe.

[Sean Pendergast]

Come on.

[Seth Payne]

After your pitch. After a pitcher gets shelled in a game. Yeah. I can point out that it was a really bad performance for him. I don't have to say his stuff is really good. Oh, okay. Yeah. I don't have to say, hey, Hunter's stuff is really good.

[Sean Pendergast]

We're trying to get him to change.

[Seth Payne]

Christian Walker. We'll do Christian Walker.

[Sean Pendergast]

Let's do this.

[Seth Payne]

Christian Walker, repeat after me. I can handle failure. When I have a bad moment or I strike out, I hold my chest out with pride. I walk to the dugout at a normal pace, and I understand that I'm not setting a bad example like the aforementioned. For the aforementioned. Zach, disenzo that what this game is all about is not pouting. It's about just getting back up and doing it again.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes.

[Seth Payne]

I also. My obliques are strong and flexible, and I will not injure them.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's gonna work.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Can I give an affirmation to Christian Walker?

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Christian, repeat after me. It's okay to watch a ball go in the dirt. Dirt. And not try to golf club swing at it.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. Yes. Oh.

[Cole Thompson]

It's okay to watch a ball go by and not try to play hero.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's okay when it goes in the dirt at first base. It's okay. Like, we like him to swing at it with his glove to try to scoop it, but we don't like him do that with his bat.

[Cole Thompson]

All right.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's a good one.

[Seth Payne]

Imai, repeat after me.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay.

[Seth Payne]

I don't know if we have a translator. The ball.

[Sean Pendergast]

This one's gonna take a while.

[Seth Payne]

The ball is. The ball is just sticky enough. The meals are served at the appropriate time in the appropriate place. The baseball game is nine innings long, and I can be there for the majority of it. I would be another one.

[Sean Pendergast]

The mound is.

[Seth Payne]

The mound is exactly the appropriate height and steepness for me. Y equals MX plus MX plus B is okay with me.

[Sean Pendergast]

66 degrees in Seattle is seasonably warm.

[Seth Payne]

Yes. I am comfortable.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's not cold.

[Seth Payne]

60 degrees Fahrenheit. I don't know what it is in Celsius is just fine.

[Cole Thompson]

Finding the strike zone three times in a row is a welcomed experience.

[Seth Payne]

Yes. Good job. We've got them on track. Bright. Brian King. Listen, Repeat after me, Brian King.

[Sean Pendergast]

We gonna waste our time?

[Seth Payne]

Repeat after me, Brian King. I have historically great splits versus righties. I will. I will look at photos of myself and hit the mirror button on Instagram so it'll make me look like I'm a righty because that's what I have done historically. I haven't gone in and let up home run after home run after home run. That's not who I am. I will take my. I will spend my time in the minor leagues to. To. To do what I always do, which is have, have, have, have. Have great splits versus Righties.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes. Yes, yes. Okay.

[Seth Payne]

Jeremy Pena.

[Sean Pendergast]

Jeremy Pena.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh boy.

[Seth Payne]

My muscles are live and pliable and, and well hydrated. I never cramp up. And when I do cramp up, I don't act like these modern athletes who think that a cramp is somehow a forebear to tearing something. Ah, I wouldn't. I will not leave games because of cramping, be they muscular or menstrual.

[Sean Pendergast]

This is, this is at least. This music is something, man. I like this. This is at least five times now that he's.

[Seth Payne]

That he's had to leave a game

[Sean Pendergast]

since, since late last year. The Jeremy Pena had been a rock forever. And then he got beaned by the Cubs last year in the ribs. I'm not counting that on his ticket injury wise, but it broke a rib. But it's almost like it broke something else inside of him because he, he, he missed the. People forget this. He missed the last week of the season. Last year they could have used Jeremy Pena, 10th in the MVP voting to make the playoffs last year. Missed it with I believe an oblique or something like that oblique strain. And there's been, there's now been at least three, if not four times. Two times he's already been on the injured list.

[Cole Thompson]

If he goes back, it's the third time.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's the third time on the injured list. So the last two he's come back like he's come back without having to go to the. He's anyways he's getting hurt.

[Seth Payne]

Repeat after me Einer, with your positive affirmations. I love coconut water. I love pickle juice. I love any kind of electrolyte laden liquid that's going to help me finish games. That's the. And that's. And that's just the way I operate. That's just what I do.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. You mean Pena.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. What did I say?

[Sean Pendergast]

You said oh yiner yet I got

[Seth Payne]

excited when you said all right, repeat after me. I know where the strike zone is and I understand when to, when to challenge and when not to challenge. And sometimes I won't challenge when it is indeed a ball. And then if I, when I do actually end up having a couple successful

[Sean Pendergast]

challenges after that for a minute, I

[Seth Payne]

won't screw up everything by throwing a runner out at second who I have no hope of getting out when there's a runner on third. When there's a runner on third and you score a run because you tried to pick up somebody who was unpickable. Yeah. And I will remind Hunter that you got a guy on first, who's got a healthy lead.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Do a little affirmation for Hunter, too.

[Seth Payne]

I will.

[Sean Pendergast]

I will pay attention to base runners.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, I forgot. With a spot spotted, you're back in the mix, Joe. Repeat after me, Joe. I. I will pull Hunter at the appropriate time. I will not let him sit out there with absolutely zero command with the bases loaded. And I will understand exactly what's. I will watch the baseball game. I will watch the baseball game and understand what's going on.

[Cole Thompson]

We throw one more in for Yiner.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

I love home plate. Yeah. I should cover home plate. I should stay positive and not be anywhere else but home.

[Seth Payne]

Yes. I repeat after me, Yiner. I understand where the danger is, and I will be there. I will be there and cover the appropriate bases when. When it might prevent something like an actual run being scored, even though it probably wouldn't have. But just still be there. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Text message. These sound like backhanded affirmations.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

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

[Seth Payne]

I don't know what you're talking about. This is just positivity.

[Cole Thompson]

This positivity would be better served as a player after chewing. Damn positive. I don't need fire and brimstone, but give me the spark.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay. Can I do one for my favorite player? Mike Burroughs.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Who avoided, like, Kai way. Tang avoided his minor league assignment by coming up with some injury. The team. Remember Kyway. Tang got option to Sugar Land in there, like, two days later. Like, oh, no, wait, you know, his arm, it's broken. Like Rodney Dangerfield, like. So the same thing happened with Mike Burrows. They optioned him, but then they revoked the option, so he's still with the ball club. Mike Burroughs, repeat after me. I don't need to just throw meatballs over the middle of the plate.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

I can cherry pick.

[Seth Payne]

I got the stuff. Yes. Yes.

[Sean Pendergast]

Pick on. Pick the corners here to cherry pick, pick to. To nibble, as they like to say, on the corners. I don't need to serve it on a silver platter to these people. Look at. Look at most of the hitters I've thrown to this year. You know what? The reason I've given up a lot of runs is just because of these damn home runs I keep giving up.

[Seth Payne]

Yes.

[Sean Pendergast]

If I just stop giving up the home runs, and I am perfectly capable.

[Seth Payne]

Good job, Mike. Mike Burrow.

[Sean Pendergast]

Look at this red beard of mine. That's beautiful. I look like a pirate.

[Seth Payne]

I'm gonna say be a pirate. I've got one. Typically, you don't Try to go give affirmations to a piece of technology. But for pitchcom. Pitchcom, which just went out for how long was. It was like three hours the other night. Yeah. I am. I am not all that complicated a piece of technology I like. I'm not that much different than a transistor radio. Then I will not. I will not fail. I will not fail you humans in critical moments because what the hell.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Can I give one to a piece of technology? This is an affirmation for the iPad in the Astros dugout. You know what? I need to stop letting these guys play Candy Crush and Angry Birds.

[Seth Payne]

Yes. Yeah. I'm going to. I'm going to have parental controls on.

[Sean Pendergast]

I'm going to self download whatever apps the good teams are using to get. Not cheat, but get a little edge.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

You know, I'm going to. I'm going to try to be a more productive piece of technology in this dugout.

[Seth Payne]

Not even try. I am a more productive. You have to visualize you. Being that I got the perfect iPad,

[Cole Thompson]

I thought of one of Joe Espada. Get him back in here for a second.

[Seth Payne]

Repeat after. Repeat after goal.

[Cole Thompson]

I will not burn my pitcher. That just came off the IL from Tommy John surgery by keeping him out

[Sean Pendergast]

there way too long tonight.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

I will set the tone tonight by allowing him to go as far as he can with being comfortable.

[Seth Payne]

Right.

[Cole Thompson]

And not put him in a position to where I am going to blow out his arm.

[Seth Payne]

Yes.

[Cole Thompson]

And have him back for one strike start. And right back at square one with this pitching.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

I didn't leave Hunter Brown out way too long in his first start of the season, which maybe was the reason that he got into the fix he was in anyway.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Eight innings, you know, eight weeks later. He'll be fine.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Blanco's gotta. He's got to be on a pitch count tonight. Right? I mean, technically, everybody, if it's going

[Seth Payne]

well, Espada's like, we can go to the fifth. Hey, Joe, repeat after me. I'm not terrified about how I'm going to be reusing my relievers through three days from now. So I'm to the point where I. Where I. Where I keep guys in for way too long. And I damn sure won't be complimenting pitcher after. After you allow seven runs. But, hey, he stayed in for six innings. He made my job easier. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

I just got one sent to me from my wife, an affirmation. She would like the Houston fan base to repeat after themselves. I do not need to do the Wave. It's stupid. I can sit and enjoy a game without doing the Wave. Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

I don't need, I don't need gadgetry like, like the Wave to keep, to keep my kids entertained during games.

[Sean Pendergast]

People want us to do affirmations for people at Sports Radio 610 for Clint. I will not talk about how injuries can't get worse in the second half of the season. Did Clint say that? Oh, he must.

[Cole Thompson]

He must have unfolded.

[Sean Pendergast]

If a random texter is saying it, it's got to be.

[Seth Payne]

I'm guilty of it. Just at the beginning of the season. All last off season, we all did that. Seth, repeat after me. I will not in the off season say that they can't. The injuries can't possibly be as bad early on as they were last year.

[Sean Pendergast]

The injuries can always get worse.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's what we've learned. All right. Good job, Seth. I enjoyed that. I have no idea if it's going to work.

[Seth Payne]

Hopefully everybody's feeling a lot more positive. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. All right. We, we've done this the last couple of days with Cole at 7:20, but we did acknowledge me earlier today. News that you may have missed from over the weekend from the news cycle here. Cole Thompson's got him for you. News you may have missed. Including, including one. We had lottery stories last week. This one's a good one. We've got a good lottery story that we'll get to and also some sports related ones as well. Tom Brady, people getting upset with Tom Brady on the interwebs over the weekend. We'll get with that. We'll get to that as well. Stay. There's Pain and Pendergast. All right. Pain and Pendergast with you on a Monday. Hope you had a great weekend. Still got a ton to get to Today on the show with you till 10am Sean Pendergast, Seth Payne, Cole Thompson's here with us today today. And we did this segment a couple times last week. We'll do it here. But yeah, especially on a Monday, you know, a lot of stuff kind of slips through the cracks off the radar, whatever, you know, whatever wording it is you want to use. But there may have been news that you missed over the weekend, sports and otherwise. So Cole is here with a few of those stories for us to react to here. What do you got, Cole?

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, we all have that one friend that is definitely being shady behind closed doors. They're not telling us the entire story. They're very friendly. They want to keep you in the loop but if something happens to them, they're keeping it under wraps. Who do you think would be the person at 6:10 that would find a way to win the lottery if you're in a pool with everybody and then say, you know what?

[Sean Pendergast]

Thanks for.

[Cole Thompson]

Not thanks, I'm keeping the money.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's a heavy question. So tell us why you're asking that question first and then give us a chance to think about it.

[Cole Thompson]

So there was a bunch of construction workers that went in on the lottery in New Jersey, day in and day out. And then one of the workers who had the mega millions said that he was taking off of work because he needed foot surgery. And they didn't give a timeline of what he would return.

[Seth Payne]

Latte for Keenan?

[Cole Thompson]

That's me.

[Sean Pendergast]

Hey, you're.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Buying a car online on autotrader. Really?

[Seth Payne]

But unlike other sites, you can start online, test drive with a local dealer, then finish online or at the dealership.

[Cole Thompson]

Cool. Enjoy.

[Seth Payne]

Buy your car online on autotrader.

[Sean Pendergast]

Really?

[Seth Payne]

We, the people of the ballpark, are

[Sean Pendergast]

all in on baseball.

[Seth Payne]

We deserve serve dingers and dogs, sunshine and a beat.

[Sean Pendergast]

A place to take it all in

[Seth Payne]

and let it all out. Baseball for the people.

[Cole Thompson]

Baseball is something else.

[Seth Payne]

Visit mlb.com tickets and spend this summer with us.

[Cole Thompson]

Major League Baseball.

[Sean Pendergast]

Trademarks used with permission.

[Seth Payne]

Would you look at that.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's time for some of our favorite Snapple reel facts. Real fact 1433. Toe wrestling is a competitive sport. Riot back 732. The chicken is the closest living relative

[Seth Payne]

of the Tyrannosaurus rex.

[Sean Pendergast]

And riot back 1599. A man once ate an entire airplane. Yeouch. Did he have any hot sauce?

[Seth Payne]

Yep.

[Sean Pendergast]

So anyways, this has been a refreshing break. Brought to you by Snapple. Real tea, real juice with snaps and refreshing. Presented by T Mobile, the official wireless partner of Odyssey Sports. With an awesome network and great savings, there's never been a better time to join T Mobile Mobile. Visit your neighborhood store to make the switch.

[Seth Payne]

Today the recap show is an inside look into the world of global soccer and women's sports. Follow and listen to the recap show

[Sean Pendergast]

wherever you get your podcasts.

[Cole Thompson]

Earn. And he never came back. We'll come to find out. The other guys who were banking alongside him in the mega millions found out that he won $38.5 million.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, so hold on, let me. So let me get. Let me make sure I have this straight. So you got all these guys, dozen guys or whatever, all pulling in together and we see companies do that and you. They all pull in for the lottery tickets. And if you win, you split it evenly.

[Seth Payne]

So this guy just flat out didn't tell him.

[Sean Pendergast]

This guy just up and. Any. Any just up and left?

[Cole Thompson]

Well, no, what he did was he said, oh, I'm having foot surgery. I'll be out for an extended time. Never came back. A year.

[Sean Pendergast]

So he had one already.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. A year goes by.

[Sean Pendergast]

A year.

[Cole Thompson]

A year goes by, Nobody finds out about it. One guy then looks up online about him and figures out that he won $38.5 million. But because if he just wanted to go ahead and get the money, not worry about anyone finding out about this, he took the tax out on it. So $24 million. Well, the friends got together and sued this guy to be able to get their earnings because they put in for

[Sean Pendergast]

the lottery to get their share to

[Cole Thompson]

get the 24 million.

[Seth Payne]

Okay, did they win or is this ongoing?

[Cole Thompson]

So they ended up winning. They handed over the 24 million. Each person got $4 million they should get.

[Seth Payne]

What a dirty. So the question is, who. Who at Sports Radio 610 is most likely to do that? If we had a pool, I would say, Sean, just because he was like, I. I think, I think you'd see him being in deep to. To a bookie or something.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

And he wouldn't do it because he. Because he was greedy. Do it out of desperation. Yeah, yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

I. When I saw. When I saw this story, I immediately thought, okay, who here would do that? I'm like, d, damn. I think it might be me.

[Cole Thompson]

You want to go with Paul?

[Seth Payne]

That's a pretty shady thing.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

I don't know that Galant would hold up well knowing that he stiffed people out of a million dollars country.

[Seth Payne]

No, Galant. Galant has a certain stubbornness. Like, in a good way. Like there's certain things that he will and will not stand for. I feel like he would be adamant about doing the right thing even if he desperately didn't want.

[Sean Pendergast]

I do too. Me, on the other hand, I would say a young.

[Seth Payne]

I think Lopez in his younger years might do it. I don't think now.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, probably not now.

[Seth Payne]

I can see. I can see Lopez back in the 70s when he's out and he's wearing shirt on button onto his belly button and everything.

[Sean Pendergast]

Remember?

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Partied with Charlie Sheen.

[Seth Payne]

He shows.

[Sean Pendergast]

I see Charlie Sheen talking him into it.

[Seth Payne]

I think. I know Lopez would have a van full of kilos of coke. And yeah, Charlie, she be like, why

[Sean Pendergast]

are you splitting it with your co workers? Cuba. Yeah, get out of here. Yeah, get out of here. Yeah. So I think, I think you nailed it, Seth. I think if we're power ranking, I'll wear that.

[Cole Thompson]

Power ranking. You'd be at the top.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, I'll wear that. I find it.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. Who would be last in that ranking? Who do you think would be like the first person to show up, guys?

[Sean Pendergast]

Reggie.

[Seth Payne]

I think there might be a part. That's the kind of thing where, man, if that, if that's the arrangement, if there's any inkling in your mind at all of like the temptation to do that, you gotta, you gotta go in me. Like you gotta text everybody immediately and just get it out there. Yeah. Once you go down that road, that's

[Sean Pendergast]

definitely would have picked me because he likes to point out that I have rich friends.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Let me just be clear. I haven't swindled any of them out of any money. Okay.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Not tried to get him in on a Ponzi scheme or some sort of ticket buying scam or pull a Matt Miller with him and say, hey, I'm giving it all to charity.

[Cole Thompson]

I do think it's funny that all of us agreed Reggie consensusly.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah. Reggie's. He. He's an upstanding citizen. Citizen.

[Cole Thompson]

This is a sentence I thought I would never utter out of my mouth. Tom Brady needs to skull drag Logan Paul.

[Sean Pendergast]

Why are you saying that sentence?

[Cole Thompson]

So did you guys see the fanatics issue with him? With him slapping.

[Sean Pendergast]

Slapped him good.

[Seth Payne]

Slap Logan Paul good. Like there is obviously a prelude. And this is after Tom Brady, a day or two before had said that he hoped to get into ww, get into a pro wrestling match.

[Sean Pendergast]

Somehow he told Cody Rhodes that.

[Cole Thompson]

So it's continuing. Yesterday at the World Cup Final, they have Tom Brady and his kids sitting in a. Sitting in a suite right next to Logan Paul and his own paparazzi. So they're going back and forth, getting the middle finger to each other, going and screaming at each other, like making fun of each other. Like, it feels like this is a moment of where you're finally getting set up for Tom Brady to enter the ring.

[Seth Payne]

This to me feels better be. I honestly, I see a lot of people asking this question, why Tom? Why? Yes, I feel like this is him.

[Sean Pendergast]

Snooty people.

[Seth Payne]

It's. This is a weird midlife crisis to have, which he has. You know, he's in a different. He's in a different place than most people in the world where he doesn't have to go out. He's already got whichever vehicle he wants or whatever. But I feel like it's. Yeah, it's something like he's just gonna.

[Sean Pendergast]

He.

[Cole Thompson]

He.

[Seth Payne]

He's just gonna let his freak flag fly.

[Cole Thompson]

Do.

[Sean Pendergast]

Do I look. I'm the WWE fan in the room, so this is my opinion on this. Is that. Yeah, I definitely think it's working towards something. The. The part that I don't like, I. I like Tom Brady being involved. The Tom Brady gets involved in a WWE angle in some way. I'll be super interested to see exactly what the creative looks like for that. It is the people like the Albert Brers, the Will Compton's, the. Those are the two that I.2 of a few that I saw yesterday. The two that I can recall off the top of my head, though. Why is he doing this?

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, why, Tom?

[Cole Thompson]

Why?

[Sean Pendergast]

Like, doing what? Like, who cares? Logan Paul and some sort of wwe Know why he's doing it? Because it's fun. He's having fun. He's enjoying doing it. Are people against sets?

[Seth Payne]

Not everybody's abandoned their dignity quite already like you have, apparently.

[Sean Pendergast]

Why is that abandoning your dignity?

[Cole Thompson]

To be fair, who has not want to flip off Logan Paul?

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, I mean, like, there's one person.

[Cole Thompson]

That's the guy.

[Seth Payne]

This is a part of it that I don't like. Is that I just not. I'm not buying it at all. Like, I'd like there to be some little part of it where it feels like, okay, this might. Is my microphone.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, you're on. You're on. You're good.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, I can't hear myself.

[Cole Thompson]

The.

[Seth Payne]

The. There might be some part where like, oh, wait a second. Brady. Brady's serious this time or something. Or he means it.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's a wrestling angle.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, I know. I just. I'm not buying into the fantasy of it. It just looks so awkward.

[Sean Pendergast]

Neither am I. Yeah, but that's fine. No, but it's. Let me be clear. It's the people that somehow feel like Tom Brady should be above this.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Like they're being like, stop being so snooty. Stop. Stop looking down on my people. My people generate a lot of money.

[Seth Payne]

Think I'm looking down on him a little bit.

[Sean Pendergast]

I think you are too. It's a little annoying.

[Cole Thompson]

Okay, what do you guys think is the most Florida story of all FL stories?

[Seth Payne]

It's got to involve math.

[Sean Pendergast]

We've got four minutes left in this segment. What's the most Florida story? Where do we start?

[Cole Thompson]

So would you say selling Burmese pythons for free pizza would be a Florida story?

[Seth Payne]

Oh, yeah. Anything with an escaped Burmese python.

[Sean Pendergast]

It checks all the boxes. Checks all the boxes. Unhealthy food, reptiles.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Some sort of underground commerce, it sounds like. Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

So there's a Florida pizzeria that is currently looking to be in this. Be in this fight to get the most Burmese pythons because they're an invasive species and you're supposed to collect them.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

So the owner is now offering one Burmese python for a free pizza.

[Seth Payne]

Python. You get a free pizza. Is it hard to get a Bernese python everywhere?

[Cole Thompson]

Apparently the entire state.

[Sean Pendergast]

Are they, are they trying to, are they overrun with them?

[Cole Thompson]

Right, Overrun with them. And you're supposed to euthanize them immediately. But there's a contest going on called the Florida Python Challenge where The winner gets $10,000 in prize money.

[Sean Pendergast]

Who's the, like, who are the contestants? Pizzerias.

[Cole Thompson]

No, no, no. This one guy who is known for also being a snake hunter is asking people to come on in and drop off Burmese pythons and in return he'll give you a free pizza out of it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, but who's, but who's, what's this contest you're talking about? Who's this contest?

[Cole Thompson]

The guy who owns the pizzeria is trying to win the $10,000 by collecting the most.

[Sean Pendergast]

The most Burmese python.

[Cole Thompson]

There's no rule how to collect them, so he can just say, here, you want a free pepperoni and mushroom.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay.

[Cole Thompson]

Python.

[Seth Payne]

It's not a great Florida story because it doesn't involve an arrest.

[Sean Pendergast]

Florida.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. Yeah. Like, while an arrest involving bath salts would be the best one.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes. That's a, that's, that's the sweet nectar.

[Seth Payne]

This is. Yeah. I never knew this. And I assume that it's 100% correct because I heard it from a stand up comedian, which is where I get most of my legal learning.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right, right.

[Seth Payne]

One of the, there's a guy from Florida who said that the, the reason that the so many legal stories, stories from Florida make the news is because it's easier to search their database than other states.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay.

[Seth Payne]

So like, it's all, like, it's just, it's a very easy to search database. And he's, he's, he's, he's making this argument for it and I'm like, yeah, but it's, it's also, it's because somebody in Florida is running there, Some idiot in Florida is running that database and making it that way. Yeah, yeah. It's full of people who didn't fit in. It's people who weren't ambitious enough to go to it's. All the free spirits who were in ambition is enough to go all the way to the west coast. They're like, they just don't fit in. So they go to Florida. You know the kid from your high school that moved to Florida? Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Like that state is Florida.

[Seth Payne]

Those guys. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Tom Flaherty moved to Florida.

[Cole Thompson]

How big of a jinx do you think Nick Wright is because of. Once again, he has found a way to mess things up in the world.

[Sean Pendergast]

Did you see this?

[Seth Payne]

No.

[Cole Thompson]

So Nick Wright has gone to three World cup games. In every single one, he has picked a team that he is rolling rooting for. The first one was Brazil. Brazil gets upset by Norway.

[Sean Pendergast]

Hang on, don't bury the lead. Nick gets dressed up in the whole head to toe bucket hat of the team jersey.

[Cole Thompson]

The whole thing speaks on how the sports gods are on his side with everything. So Brazil loses to Norway. Then he goes to the Morocco fight. I mean, the Morocco battle, they lose that game in right at the end. So it's just like a comeback way. Then yesterday in New York, he is dressed head to toe, covered in Argentinian gear, saying the sports gods will be on Argentina's side today.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Once again, they find a way to lose. He's over three in games.

[Seth Payne]

It's a really good shtick for him because it's entertaining.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

And it's not beneath him the way Tom Brady might do something, but it also, he's got to be careful. Like, you can't take this act to Argentina or anything. You know, he loves doing this. Well, he's well within the, you know, ensconced in the safety of the United States.

[Sean Pendergast]

Clearly, if he did that, it'd be unlike uninvited.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you gotta be. You gotta be careful with this, Nick.

[Sean Pendergast]

I didn't know about the Morocco one. I'd only seen the Brazil one once. You do it twice.

[Cole Thompson]

The third time it's like time you're just trolling.

[Seth Payne]

I mean, so he's probably a little bit of the version of your. Your pro wrestling guy there. The Danhausen, he's.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's the anti Dan house.

[Cole Thompson]

Speaking of which, Danhausen was the last thing that we're gonna talk about here. Danhausen is on a generational run of cursing people. Every single person he has cursed so far. Far he has been able to watch when he first off, started off by cursing everyone besides who was playing the Knicks. They won that one. Then he cursed the Las Vegas Golden Knights in the, in the Stanley cup final. Carolina won that one. Then he Co. Then he cursed on Saturday for Fanatics Fest. He cursed Argentina. Yeah, they won that one.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Yeah. He literally had cursed the Knicks. They lost two games and they didn't. He. And he uncursed them and they went on to win 11 out of 12, whatever it was. So, yeah, he's. He's on a roll right now.

[Cole Thompson]

Like, do not be on the bad side.

[Sean Pendergast]

I tweeted out I had AI make a Sports Illustrated cover with him as sportsman of the year.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

For 2026. And tweeted it yesterday.

[Seth Payne]

You know, I went through a few of his cameos because I like going through cameos and seeing the people who give the bad reviews. And a couple of his. Couple of his were pretty milquetoast. I was kind of disappointed in him. He was just kind of like, reading. Reading it, not putting any emotion into it.

[Sean Pendergast]

I've been. Yeah, I'm with you. Like, the cameos have been a little underwhelming.

[Seth Payne]

Well, even.

[Sean Pendergast]

You know, I'll probably buy one.

[Seth Payne]

Bryce Harper's cameo that he got in all kinds of hot water for, because who was it? Was it FanDuel or. Which. No.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes.

[Seth Payne]

FanDuel ended up using it, like, as, like, in a way that. That Bryce Harper didn't realize it was going to be.

[Sean Pendergast]

There was a guy who lost a million and a half gambling with him. And they used that video to send to him.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

To encourage him to start gambling. Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Like, Bryce harbor didn't understand exactly how it was going to be used. But even, like, I was more critical of his. The lack of energy he had in the cameo.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Than any tie to the. The actual sports.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's Bryce Harper. One I don't like. I'm with you. I saw the video. He's a baseball player. The Danhausen ones. I'm like, you're a performer.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. Who's.

[Cole Thompson]

Who's.

[Sean Pendergast]

Who. Honestly, whose Star is based 98% on the performative part of the. Like the. Like the humor part of the character, not the in ring part of the character. Character. So I'm kind of with you on that. Still love the guy, but kind of with you on that.

[Seth Payne]

I'm gonna get a cameo count today, but I'm gonna have, like, a. Like a stupidly high price.

[Cole Thompson]

By the way, the text line says Nick Wright is Ted Cruz and Tyler Milner combined.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's pretty good. That's pretty good. All right, coming up next. Good job, Cole.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, actually, I think T Mill might be the guy. T Mill might be the guy that withholds withholds oh, the information about winning the lottery.

[Cole Thompson]

We'll never hear from him again.

[Seth Payne]

No, I honestly. I honestly think Sean would be one of the lowest. I was just picking at him.

[Sean Pendergast]

No, no. Yeah. No, I. But I do envision myself like, could I see my. The money was enough. I don't think I would do it. Tyler Milner, that's the guy.

[Cole Thompson]

And they all say Ron on the text line.

[Sean Pendergast]

I don't know that Ron. I. Ron doesn't strike me as dishonest. You know, like, it's like the, like,

[Seth Payne]

if anything, he's a little too honest.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Seth Payne]

He speaks the truth.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Seth Payne]

All right.

[Sean Pendergast]

Someone saying Bijani for sure. See, Bijani has his own business outside of radio, so he would have a way to kind of hide it a little bit.

[Seth Payne]

That's true. He'd be like, he' that he. Oh, Yeah. I built 300 fences. I don't know if you know this,

[Sean Pendergast]

but the fence business is growing.

[Seth Payne]

10,000 and laundering the money somehow.

[Cole Thompson]

I made a TikTok. It blew up. Now my business is going everywhere.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. All right, coming up Next, the all PFF era team. So going back to 2006, Pro Football Focus put together their all pro team for the last 20 years. Which brings up an interesting question about DeAndre Hopkins, who made this team. We'll have that for you coming up next.

[Seth Payne]

Sports Radio 610 presents live from the West Point Lincoln and West Point Lincoln of Sugarland Studios. Here's Pain and Pendergast.

[Sean Pendergast]

All right, so Pro Football Focus put together their. Their All Pro Football Focus era team for the NFL. They've been doing each of the 32 teams recently. Pro Football Focus has kind of pro. And for those who don't know, Pro Football Focus, the website that grades every player every snap of every game and they give them a numerical grade. For people that love number numbers, it's a fantastic website. They've got some good stuff on there. So it goes back to 2006. So this is essentially sort of the all pro team in the eyes of PFF. Since 2006, the Texans show up twice on this team. One is an obvious one. J.J. watt is one of the defensive

[Seth Payne]

linemen finally getting some respect team.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's about time. We'll talk about JJ in bit. A little, little bit. JJ was fun on social media the last few days. So JJ made this team on the defensive line. He was first team along with Aaron Donald. It sounds like they're treating him like an interior defensive lineman for purposes of this.

[Seth Payne]

Who jj.

[Sean Pendergast]

Jj. Yep. So the other one that shows up, I said wide receiver shows up on the PFF since 2006. All NFL team.

[Seth Payne]

I would say that would be Andre Johnson.

[Sean Pendergast]

You'd say Andre Johnson would, wouldn't you?

[Cole Thompson]

I'd say DeAndre.

[Sean Pendergast]

You would say DeAndre.

[Cole Thompson]

I would say DeAndre.

[Sean Pendergast]

Why would you say DeAndre over Andre?

[Cole Thompson]

I think because of more people look towards newer. Like I've always lived in the world of new is always better.

[Sean Pendergast]

This is purely based on scores, though.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Okay.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, this is purely based on data.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, then okay then. Yeah, it should be Andre.

[Sean Pendergast]

Then it. And it's not.

[Seth Payne]

It's actually DeAndre.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's DeAndre. Now Andre loses the benefit, I guess, of the first three years of his career. I think he made a Pro bowl in like 04 when he was a teammate of yours.

[Seth Payne]

So since 2006. Yeah. But Andre really didn't take off until his third year, right? Yeah, till.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. And he really took off like in 08. He was the best receiver in football in 08 and 09.

[Cole Thompson]

Like for three straight years too. He was unstoppable.

[Sean Pendergast]

He was. He was amazing.

[Seth Payne]

DeAndre's probably had a more consistently productive year by year.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. And DeAndre makes first team.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

So they have first team and second team. Now they. They have three receivers on the first team. Julio Jones, Antonio Brad Brown, DeAndre Hopkins. The three second team receivers. Devonte Adams, Calvin Johnson and Tyreek Hill. My question is this. You look at those six names. Julio. Julio Jones. Well, Calvin Johnson's in the hall of Fame.

[Cole Thompson]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

Julio Jones feels like a lock.

[Seth Payne]

Julio Jones, 16th all time receiving yards

[Sean Pendergast]

feels like a lock.

[Seth Payne]

DeAndre's at 18th.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay. Antonio Brown should be a lock. Yeah, should be.

[Cole Thompson]

Should on field player is a Hall of Famer.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. And which is what they.

[Seth Payne]

They're not supposed to take anything off field into it.

[Cole Thompson]

Correct.

[Seth Payne]

But they did that with Terrell Terrell.

[Sean Pendergast]

They held him out a couple of years because he was a bad teammate. Tyree Kill. Similar to Antonio Brown. Tyreek Hill's a Hall of Famer. Look at his resume. He's a Hall of Famer. And devonte Adams, I think is on that track as well. Put it this way, of these six guys who are first or second team, I feel like DeAndre is the one who like to me far and away has the least amount of buzz like that.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. I think that especially when the. A lot of times when you're atypical, it's not rewarded. And DeAndre is atypical compared to those other guys and that his speed wasn't like the blistering, menacing. Right, right. He still affected coverages. People didn't want him running after the catch. But I don't think that people look at him in that same category. Category. But, but he is like he's 18th. He's 18th in all time receiving yards. The guys who aren't in the hall of Fame above him who are eligible are Steve Smith, senior Reggie Wayne, who's been a final.

[Sean Pendergast]

Who both been finalists a couple times.

[Cole Thompson]

Both probably eventually will find their way in or at least be in that

[Sean Pendergast]

conversation unless there's a log jam at wide receiver.

[Seth Payne]

But continue Reggie Wayne list. And then Anquan Bolden is the one that like a lot of times people would compete. Compared DeAndre to Anquan Bolden somewhat and said, all right, it doesn't look like the way guys typically do it, but he's just so physical at the catch point and he just churns out production. And I think DeAndre was better than Anquan Bolden, but I think, I think people are going to throw him into that same category.

[Sean Pendergast]

I do too. So he's 18th, huh?

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

See my, my whole thing with the hall of Fame is this. And this is why I think DeAndre is a much better candidate than what he's getting credit for. If you're one of the best at your position, if your first team off pro for a period of like over a five year period of your first team all pro and. Or second team all pro.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

For most of that period of time from 2015 through 2019. The only year DeAndre Hopkins wasn't in that conversation or an actual first team all pro was the year that Brock Osweiler was the quarterback. The only person that could shut down DeAndre Hopkins was Brock Osweiler as his quarterback. Like it was the one year where DeAndre only had like 800 yards.

[Cole Thompson]

954. That.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, so he's almost 1,000 even with Brockster as his quarterback.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, I know. He was a quarterback skeleton key.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

That was the only. Brock was the only guy that didn't figure out a way to just throw the ball in the general direction of DeAndre Hopkins.

[Cole Thompson]

Right. If he, if he would have had any other quarterback find him that year and go for a thousand yards. Eight straight 1,000 yard years.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Henry Allard is the only other guy. Yeah. You know what? That's what I thought. And then I looked up just to be sure. I'm pronouncing pronunciation and I think I Know. Yeah. Okay. Well, I know I'm shrugging it. Yeah. Stupid Gemini

[Sean Pendergast]

pronounce. They can't do pronunciation either.

[Seth Payne]

I haven't pronounced Ellard's name since maybe like 1998 or so.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Yeah. And he's in the top 18 or top 16? Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Would you consider that maybe because of what we've witnessed with devonte Adams being last year's leader in touchdown reception and kind of the fall off of DeAndre Hopkins, that's why he's not thought about in such a prominent way?

[Sean Pendergast]

I don't know. I mean, devonte Adams had some big years, right. Played in a lot of big games in Green Bay. I. You know, does it hurt DeAndre Hopkins that a lot of his damage was done with a Texans team that was his teams. You know, by and large, they were good teams, but they weren't, you know, they. They were not contending teams that DeAndre was, I guess.

[Seth Payne]

And, well, like the old barometer you always use is. Okay. Was there a period of time where people looked at him as the best receiver in the NFL?

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

And I don't. I don't think he was ever up at that spot.

[Sean Pendergast]

He weighs first team all pro, three out of like five years.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

I mean, that's pretty good. You know, I don't know. Like, I. Is it enough to where he's a slam dunk for the hall of Fame? Probably not, but I think he gets. I think he gets under. Discussed in conversations like this all the time. DeAndre Hopkins. There's an interesting cut I saw from Jalen Ramsey over the weekend. We'll play it right here. He was on the million dollars worth of game podcast and said the only. The only wide receiver to ever put up a hundred yards on him in a game was DeAndre Hopkins at the end of 2018. And here's what it led him to do.

[Seth Payne]

Twice for two yards. Now, personally, D. I put on. He put over 100 on me that game.

[Sean Pendergast]

Game.

[Seth Payne]

Because I was. I was matched up on him at least 80% of the time. And he had probably 120 to 140 that game, last game of the season that year. And he. And he went to work. I remember I was hot. Right after the game, I texted my trainer and my pops.

[Sean Pendergast]

Latte for Keenan. That's me. Hey, you're.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Buying a car online on Autotrader.

[Seth Payne]

Really? But unlike other sites, you can start on test drive with a local dealer, then finish online or at the dealership.

[Sean Pendergast]

Really? Wait, are you.

[Cole Thompson]

Yep.

[Seth Payne]

It's Keenan. Able to finish in person without starting the process over.

[Cole Thompson]

Really.

[Seth Payne]

Your info stays with you every step of the way.

[Cole Thompson]

Cool.

[Seth Payne]

Enjoy. It's Keenan Thompson. Buy your car online on autotrader.

[Cole Thompson]

Really?

[Sean Pendergast]

From high school baseball to the men's

[Seth Payne]

NCAA College World Series to NL mlb, and all the way to the National

[Sean Pendergast]

Baseball hall of Fame. How will you make your mark in MLB?

[Seth Payne]

The Show 26.

[Cole Thompson]

Available now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series

[Sean Pendergast]

XS and Nintendo Switch. Rated E for everyone officially licensed by

[Seth Payne]

MLB Players, Inc. Would you look at that.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's time for some of our favorite Snapple reelfacts. Real fact 1433 Toe wrestling is a competitive sport. Reothack 732. The chicken is the closest living relative of the tyrannosaurus rex. And reothack 1599aman once ate an entire airplane. Yowch. Did he have any hot sauce?

[Seth Payne]

Yep.

[Sean Pendergast]

So anyways, this has been a refreshing break.

[Seth Payne]

Brought to you by Snapple.

[Sean Pendergast]

Real tea, real juice with snaps and it'll be refreshing. Presented by T Mobile, the official wireless partner of Odyssey Sports. With an awesome network and great savings, there's never been a better time to join Team Mobile Mobile. Visit your neighborhood store to make the switch.

[Seth Payne]

Today, the podcast Campus Files is back

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Seth Payne]

It is not hard to destroy a college.

[Cole Thompson]

It's almost like a university under siege.

[Seth Payne]

Listen to and follow Campus Files available now wherever you get your podcasts. A group message I said as soon as I get home, we got to get after it. D d killed me. As soon as I get home, we got to get after it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Would you switch the whole.

[Seth Payne]

Your whole training?

[Sean Pendergast]

Nah, nah, not everything.

[Seth Payne]

Just. Just certain stuff that he was killing me on during the game. I'm like, yo, I gotta get better at that.

[Sean Pendergast]

Specifically, like, yo, he killing me at this.

[Seth Payne]

I need to find out a new technique to stop that. Right? Or I need to do this differently. Like, I can't keep losing like that. He done.

[Sean Pendergast]

He beat me on this route three times this game.

[Seth Payne]

I can't lose like that no more. That's the. You know, if John Mcclain is still in charge, the guy who's in charge. Charge of kind of presenting the case for the guys from Houston. That clip needs to be in there because I know they weigh that real heavily. They want to hear about the guys they competed against and what it was like. I remember, remember that was a. That was in a period when Jalen Ramsby was talking smack about anybody and everybody, including his own team, like his own quarterbacks. But he would never Talk smack about DeAndre Hopkins. That was the one. He had the eminent like the Most respect for DeAndre Hopkins.

[Sean Pendergast]

12 catches for 147 yards in the game that he's.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, like I said, it was consistent. It wasn't just. Just a Dinkin and Duncan.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh yeah. 12 catches for a buck 47. Yeah, I know. I'm curious how people feel DeAndre Hopkins. We're getting some texts on this. During his prime years, I've never seen anything with hands like Hopkins ball be thrown to. To Barnes. And somehow I don't know what that means, but I'm guessing it means someone's throwing it way far away. Yeah. And somehow he's get. He's getting not just two hand, not just one hand, but two hands.

[Seth Payne]

He is the broadside of a barn. He is the broadside of a barn. Which is why Brock is the only Brock. The one quarterback who couldn't hit the broadside of a barn was the guy that couldn't get it get the ball.

[Cole Thompson]

Still to this day, the one catch that I remember the most is him against Joe Hayden on Christmas for the Pittsburgh Steelers where he tips it up to himself and then comes down with it.

[Sean Pendergast]

One hand in the end zone.

[Cole Thompson]

In the back of the end zone.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

That's where you realize you don't question this dude when it comes to his hands.

[Seth Payne]

The other one of the best catches he ever made was negated because he himself had lined up illegally. But the one against the Giants up in the 2014. Yeah, 2014.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. All right, so there you go. What do you think? Text in 713-57-2, 4, 6, 10. All right, we'll get to J.J. watt as well in the next segment. So ESPN has closed the book on the. The. The voting that they did for the various positions. Top 10 at each position. The. So the numbers are in. Where do the Texans stack up in the number of guys they got in the top 10 compared to some other team Teams who are the biggest snubs. We'll go through these. Was there any disrespect going on with the sports radio? 610 presents. Pain and pender gas. I just said on the text page top 100. I want a pity party tantrum from Sean about CJ Stroud. Tell us why you keep saying $60 million would be smart. I haven't said that. I haven't. At no point if I said the Texans should give CJ shroud $60 million. What the hell are you talking about?

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, what are you talking about. Explain yourself.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, I.

[Seth Payne]

We get that sometimes. Is that, like, even. Even if we're discussing whether or not C.J. stroud will be on the top 100, people take that and think it as us arguing that he should be in the top 100.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right.

[Seth Payne]

Where. No, if anything, I want him to be in the top 100 just because of the mayhem that it will create in the media over him being ranked higher than Lamar Jackson.

[Cole Thompson]

That's where you really want to go. I want the Mayhemar ranked behind C.J.

[Sean Pendergast]

yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Like, the fact that Bryce Young is on there is a travesty. And, no, CJ doesn't belong on it this year. And yet there's. Because the voting process is so screwy with that thing, there's a chance that CJ Will be.

[Cole Thompson]

He would be so hysterical to watch as Sam Darnold shows on up. And one before him would be C.J. stroud.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, right.

[Cole Thompson]

Just like the guy fresh off of winning a Super bowl, but seven interceptions.

[Seth Payne]

He's still.

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, we're starting to get to a point, too. Not to go too far on the tangent, but they're going to reveal players 60 and 59 today. I thought Kalyn Bullock might make it and Kamari Lasseter might make it and Jalen Petrie might make it.

[Seth Payne]

Make it.

[Sean Pendergast]

We're starting to get into a range where I don't know if any of those guys are making it either. It may just be. May very well be Aziz and the four guys we thought were locks to make it.

[Seth Payne]

There are a lot of guys in 50 through 100 that are there because one person voted them. Theoretically, it could be. Yeah. Because they only vote for the top 20. And so, like, somebody out there, at least one person said, yep. Bryce Young, top 20 in the NFL.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Like, all right. Because it's. They went to Alabama. They're currently on the Panthers.

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, and as far as CJ Goes, we know he didn't have a lot of support in the executive. The thing we're about to talk about here, the executives and coaches and whatnot that voted in Jeremy Fowler's old deal. He had one vote in that thing. Yeah, it's. I mean, the stock is. Stock's about as low on CJ around the league right now as any. The lowest at any point in his career. Right. It's time to buy CJ Stroud stock coming up next. So the final numbers are in. In on the aforementioned Jeremy Fowler exercise, where he's got, what, 70 different coaches, coordinators, scouts, executives, around the league, front office, Personnel voting on the top 10 at each of the positions. There's 11 different position groups and they revealed the top 10 over the course of the last couple weeks. The book is closed on that. The Texans finish finished by themselves in fourth place in terms of the most guys in the top 10. And I think what's worth noting, couple of things. The. They finished with six total. They had two other guys that were the first honorable mention. So theoretically they're just a vote or two away from having eight guys right on this list. The team. This is the other interesting part, the teams that are ahead of them. So The Texans had six players named in the top 10 at their respective positions. Third place, Chiefs seven. All right, not a big surprise. Just based on the Chiefs roster over the course of the last few years. Eagles 8. Eagles have always had a deep roster. Lions 9. Nobody's drafted better over the last few years than the Detroit Lions. I think what's interesting is two of those three teams didn't make the playoffs last year.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Detroit Lions and the Kansas City Chiefs missed the postseason last year. That's interesting to me.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, the. I mean, well, the Chiefs, it's not. It's weird when people kind of just do the, the fly by analysis of teams and everything. I think people almost talk about the Chiefs a little too casually, as if Patrick Mahomes injury is what did them in and that they weren't like. No, they weren't. They were. They were. They were the peril of not making the playoffs before Pat Mahomes got injured.

[Sean Pendergast]

Absolutely. They were. Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

People do.

[Seth Payne]

They kind of. They speak in shorthand about the Chiefs like, well, they got Mahomes back. Like, all right. If you have you watched Mahomes in that offense the last couple years, it wasn't. It hasn't been driven by incredible offensive efforts.

[Sean Pendergast]

He missed like the last three or four games.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

They finished 6 and 11.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

They weren't going to the playoffs with him.

[Seth Payne]

Right. Their backs were against the wall going against the Texans in that game.

[Sean Pendergast]

Week 14. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Do you think it's weird that the Eagles and the Lions have more than the Texans? Because I personally don't. When I just look at the rosters

[Seth Payne]

with the star talent, you know, because. Yeah, the Eagles are another one of those weird teams where even like in this. In that top 20 ranking, you know, Jalen Hurts finishes what, 17th?

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

In the voting and that. Which like, I understand exactly how people look at him, but you kind of forget the Eagles perennially people. It feels like, oh, they're washed up. Oh, they won 12 games, did they? Yeah. And yet there they are every other year making a push for the Super Bowl.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep. Okay, so the players that made it for the Texans or they got mentioned in here. Proper amount of respect. Too much respect. Or the dreaded D word. Seth. Disrespect. Stingley finishing second at cornerback behind Patrick Certain. Proper amount of respect. Too much respect. Disrespect.

[Seth Payne]

I think that's. I think it's a proper amount of spec. Partly just because look, sir Tan plays in a defense where they blitz a lot. The corners are playing man coverage of the bunch and you're always going to get more credit for that because you're put in that position. And that's a big part of the. Of why the defense works. So Stingley's almost just by virtue of playing in a more balanced scheme, not saying that's better or worse. It's just a different philosophy that I, that that I think Stingley could do exactly what Certain does. He just doesn't have as many opportunities to do it.

[Cole Thompson]

The most past breakups in the last three years and the second most interceptions in the last three years. Number two overall is fine. Especially because of Certain. The first Cornerback in what, 30 years to win defensive player of the year.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

So it's hard to go ahead and say you're beating that guy.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, I think. But consistently in any power ranking you look at or anything like, including this poll, it's typically Certain number one Stingley, number two. And I'm cool. Yeah. Like you kind of think about your all pro squad. Like, okay, that makes sense.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine with Derek Stanley being on my, my team. Like, would you trade Stingley for certain? Who says no? I don't. I'll say no. I like Derek Stingley Jr. The interesting one at that position. Kamari Lasseter, the first one in honorable mention. Should Kamari Lassiter be a top 10 cornerback? In the eyes of evaluators around.

[Seth Payne]

I think he's. Because he doesn't have quite the same overall skill set as a Certain or a Derek Stingley. Like, people don't think of him as a pure cover corner. And you know, going Back to the DeAndre Hopkins discussion, it's a little bit atypical of what they think of as the, the premier type of guy that you want. He's always going to get knocked down a chunk. I think with one more year of performing at the level that he has, he'll be in the top 10 next year and I do too. It's weird though too because you think about a young cornerback and usually, okay, you're playing opposite of Derek Stingley, then you're going to get a lot more attention and people are going to test you and you should get credit for passing that test. I feel like, I feel like it's kind of like they do with defensive ends where they might say, well, look, yeah, he's a really good defensive end, but he's got another good pass rusher on the other side of, you know, well, Daniel Hunter is good, but he's got Will Anderson on the other side. I feel like they're weirdly using that same psychology with Kamari Lasseter, except forgetting that, oh, wait, no, that actually makes it harder although that you can get, you know, you can get help over the top more often when you got a Derek Stingley over on the other side.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, I think it's disrespect, personally.

[Seth Payne]

I really do.

[Cole Thompson]

And the main reason why is because of. If you're going to use the logic of, well, because of a superstar cornerbacks on one side, why are we giving that credit to Cooper, to Gene, who made the top 10 list. And I understand he can play everywhere. He lines up in the nickel, he can line up on the outside. But still, the way that you watch Kamari Laster play, I think it's more impactful to the Texans defense than Cooper De Gene is to the Eagles defense.

[Sean Pendergast]

I like him better than both of those Eagles cornerbacks.

[Cole Thompson]

Same.

[Sean Pendergast]

I like Kamari Lasseter better than Quinion Mitchell and Cooper De Jean and they're both consistently rated ahead of him and stuff like that.

[Seth Payne]

I'll tell you what, like Sauce Gardner is the one who's what, ninth on the list this year and in terms of his overall, especially because Kamari is the opposite of Sas Gardner and the. Kamari cannot wait to come up and play the run and tackle and do all those.

[Cole Thompson]

He wants to hit you in the face.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, well, like it was like, would you. Okay. Sauce Gardner probably better. Pure cover skills. But I want Kamari last year any day of the week over play hurt.

[Sean Pendergast]

He learned last year like he thought like those last few weeks of the season when he was dealing with, what was it, a foot issue or ankle or something? It was lower body, some sort of lower leg injury. He played through a lot of stuff Kamari did. Do you guys have any issue with Will Anderson third denial, Hunter sixth Will

[Seth Payne]

Anderson defenders behind my. This is the problem. This is what I didn't like about it. They. They Classified it as edge rusher instead of edge defense, which is. It's priming the brains of the voters and they're thinking about pass rush, where I'm cool with Miles Garrett, then Micah Parsons and Will Anderson. But if it's edge defender and you take the whole package into it, then I think that Will Anderson's better than Micah Parsons. So that's. I don't, I don't like the way they, I don't like the vocabulary of the, the way they pulled it.

[Cole Thompson]

But you just said pass rusher Micah Parsons over.

[Seth Payne]

Over Will Anderson. Yeah, that's fine.

[Cole Thompson]

I notice respect.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah. And Hunter six. Hunter. I mean, Hunter's getting. Hunter's getting more respect now as a Texan than he ever got as a Viking.

[Cole Thompson]

I felt like, I think he's number six. I'm totally fine with him at number six.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

But I felt like that this is the first time I've actually seen people giving the respect to.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, they said that. They said it looked like a lifetime achievement award for Daniel Hunter because you look at it and you look at what he's most sacked since 2000, whatever, four years ago or so in the league. I think the part about Danielle, too, is that when he was in Minnesota, they blitzed a lot. And what that does is it creates opportunities for a guy that at times he's unblocked, at times he's going against a running back or a tight end. And I think now that he's in a scheme where he's more often just rushing against an offensive tackle and having to win one on one versus an offensive tackle, people respect that more. So like, it's just. Even though he's playing opposite of Will Anderson and that, you know, like. Yeah, they both help each other.

[Sean Pendergast]

Sure.

[Seth Payne]

It's more of a conventional pass rush, like Miles Garrett type scenario.

[Sean Pendergast]

Did you. Okay, so the rest of these, we won't go through all of them, but Dalton Schultz also receiving votes. C.J. stroud getting one vote. Aziz Al Shire, sixth among off ball linebackers. Nico Collins, eighth among wide receivers. And again, if you're just tuning in, these are the, these are the, this is the voting that Jeremy Fowler conducted amongst executive executives, front office people, coaches, et cetera around the league. Kaylin Bullock, 10th among safeties. Jalen Petrie, honorable mention, first honorable mention among safeties. Are any of these in the disrespect?

[Seth Payne]

Okay, so when we go to quarterbacks, I don't think CJ belonged in the top 10. I do get though, a little bit disgruntled where I look at Justin Herbert as seventh and I'm. And I'm just wondering. Exactly. Especially. Okay. You know, through four interceptions in a playoff game, Justin Herbert, like Justin Herbert doesn't. I don't think Justin Herbert, like, he

[Cole Thompson]

doesn't have a playoff win yet.

[Seth Payne]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right. Teflon dude.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

The, the voter Rozzi. Whatever poll it is, it can be players.

[Cole Thompson]

It can.

[Sean Pendergast]

I can't wait to see where he ends up in the top 100.

[Cole Thompson]

Like 33.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

He.

[Sean Pendergast]

I don't know what the deal is with Justin Herbert. If he plays in a soft media market that just doesn't grill him enough.

[Cole Thompson]

He's got a great PR team. Let's just go ahead.

[Seth Payne]

I feel like Caleb Williams was 10th and I feel like that's more of a, that's like a vote of confidence for Ben Johnson. More so than it, what, it, what, what Caleb Williams actually did last year. He had some incredible, he did. He had some incredible performances, but the consistency is just not there yet. Where like guys like okay, Jordan Love or Brock Purdy that, that, that have just been tested for a longer period.

[Sean Pendergast]

So this isn't you saying for the sake of the text page here, this isn't you saying CJ should be in the top 10 or anything. This is you saying he should have gotten more than one vote in this thing.

[Seth Payne]

No, I'm not saying anything about cj. No, I don't think cj. No, I'm just talking about the. Oh, in general. There are some odd ones.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, gotcha. Because my question was did any of

[Seth Payne]

these specifically said this doesn't involve C.J.

[Sean Pendergast]

gotcha.

[Cole Thompson]

Me personally. It goes back to Seth's part. Part about the pass rusher versus edge defender. Yeah, that's it with me when it comes to Jalen Petrie. I feel like that Jalen Petrie is so versatile because think about it, he's the only guy listed at that position on the group.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

He's so valuable in run defense and playing in zone coverage and in being against slot receivers and tight ends and how he's able to be physical at the line of scrimmage. The hit that we talk about. And it's like if we're not going to go with slot defender categories, how is Nicki Minwarry one year of experience better than Jalen Petrie at this point?

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, that's where he played. They should have a, they should have a nickelback listed on here instead of. Yeah. Or even. The problem is you call a slot defender and people have classically go to the, you know, the 190 pound, your third best cornerback.

[Cole Thompson]

So at that point.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, exactly. And guys are going to give more credit when they're in that mode of thinking about the actual cover guys. Whereas Petrie's. Petrie's much more of a, like, nickel linebacker, nickelback guy can come up and stop the run, but also provide coverage that, yeah, they do need to. Just like they did with edge defenders. They got to start changing the. The nomenclature of some of these positions.

[Cole Thompson]

What was funny is social media also took to that offense and they said, if you watch Kalen Bullock play and Jalen Petrie play, there's no reason why Jalen Petrie should be behind Kaleb Luck.

[Sean Pendergast]

I'm curious what Texan fans feel like that. Like, if you. If you were to lose one of them. I mean, they lost Petrie for three games last year, so you know what that looks like. Petrie feels like almost. Petrie almost feels like the harder one to replace because of the diversity of his skill set.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, well, with Bullock, too. I mean, one thing that hampered him a little bit last year was I don't think they could do everything they wanted to. Wanted to do with him because they had just. They didn't. They didn't know who the other safety was at any given point. So there are times where, man, they might have wanted to be in single high safety and have Kaleb Bullock played, you know, deep center field, but they just don't trust that other cornerback, so they're playing safer looks.

[Sean Pendergast]

Did you. You see Tank Dell's workout video?

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Yes.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Okay.

[Seth Payne]

So, Cole, we always. Sean and I was nervous because we're not exercise physiologists, but you know me,

[Sean Pendergast]

naturally, yeah, we allow ourselves to get

[Seth Payne]

a little minor in exercise physiology.

[Cole Thompson]

I'm not a real doctor, but I play one on range.

[Sean Pendergast]

Just say yes.

[Seth Payne]

I thought the videos that came out this weekend from his workout facility, I thought. I thought that looked pretty damn impressive. I mean, he was kind of gliding along. It looked like the old. The old Tank Dell test for me was, does it look like this is AI? And I felt like that looked a little bit like AI because it just doesn't. He was moving the way most human beings, like even most football players, can't move.

[Cole Thompson]

I'm in. I'm in wait and see mode. Still. I have to be. This is a guy that's coming off of two injuries, lower body. And on top of that, the freak injury that kept you out for 20 plus months. It's. It's Great to see him at that speed. It's great to know that he is getting back to speed, like back on pace. Until I see live reps, it's just. It's a cool moment. Let's just go ahead and put a pin.

[Sean Pendergast]

But what's your medical opinion on this?

[Cole Thompson]

Medical.

[Seth Payne]

He's had two. He's played two seasons in the NFL. Both of them have ended in a. In a pretty major injury. Broken leg and leg and three torn ligaments.

[Sean Pendergast]

And in between, he got shot, right?

[Seth Payne]

Well, yeah, that's the thing. He's had three major injuries since he's been in the NFL. And in the power ranking, the gun shooting was the third, the third, third most severe.

[Cole Thompson]

I would put it at a probability rate of 72% that we will see him play in 2020.

[Sean Pendergast]

Dr. Thompson. That's what we were looking for.

[Cole Thompson]

I will also say that he is at a 50% rate of re. Injuring the leg.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, that. That very knee.

[Sean Pendergast]

Or skinny little chicken legs.

[Seth Payne]

That's the biggest thing is that's the big test. When you start practicing football, it's you. You might look great in that first practice. Then it's okay. How do you recover?

[Cole Thompson]

Yep.

[Seth Payne]

And you know, after that first game, you feel great. But how do you recover?

[Cole Thompson]

Back to the affirmations. Repeat after me, Tank. I will take it easy until week one. I will not go full speed until week one.

[Sean Pendergast]

He ain't playing in week one. Then if he's not going full speed in the preseason.

[Seth Payne]

I don't think you see him in the preseason games. But hope. But you get him in the combined practice, you get a story of a. Tank Dell had seven receptions in the combined practice.

[Cole Thompson]

So the CJ Straw effect, basically.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

All right. Pain and pender gas when I say I don't think you see him in the preseason games, if only not because he's not ready, but because they just want to keep it under wraps.

[Sean Pendergast]

Dude, we hardly see anybody in the preseason games anyways nowadays. All right, World cup is over. Casual fan, Biggest memories from this world. This World cup had a lot of newsworthy stuff that had nothing to do with the outcomes of some of the games. Games. It was pretty wild. We'll get to that.

[Seth Payne]

Coming up next, what's going to be your memory of your, you know, planning for your retirement? When you're sitting at that age, you think like, oh, yeah, I remember that day. I called Trajan wealth and got the ball rolling. And that's why I'm having the retirement I deserve right now. Taking care of My family. That's what it starts with. With planning for your time. Sports Radio 610 presents live from the West Point Lincoln and West Point Lincoln

[Sean Pendergast]

of Sugar Land Studios.

[Seth Payne]

Here's Pain and Pender.

[Sean Pendergast]

All right, so the World cup is over. Spain is your World cup champion for 2026. And now we wait. We wait four more years for three or four soccer games a day for six weeks.

[Seth Payne]

Well, the. The big thing would be is if the US makes it past the round of 16, that would be the big thing. That would be fun. In any given World Cup.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes. Yeah, that would be fun. We'll see how much progress we can.

[Seth Payne]

Where is it in 2028, 2030?

[Cole Thompson]

It's. I think it's Spain, Portugal and another country.

[Sean Pendergast]

I think you're right. I think that sounds.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, I was stuck in Olympics mode. Yeah, it's every four years. Except it's every two years.

[Sean Pendergast]

Winter, winter, summer.

[Seth Payne]

When's the Winter World Cup?

[Cole Thompson]

The Spain, Portugal, Morocco are the third.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, okay. So they're doing. Doing a little look at Morocco getting in. I know that's gotta be a latte for Keenan.

[Cole Thompson]

That's me.

[Sean Pendergast]

Hey, you're.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Buying a car online on Autotrader. Really?

[Seth Payne]

But unlike other sites, you can start online, test drive with a local dealer, then finish online or at the dealership.

[Cole Thompson]

Cool. Enjoy.

[Seth Payne]

Buy your car online on Autotrader.

[Cole Thompson]

Really?

[Sean Pendergast]

Did you know that There are over 200 legends like Andrew Jones, Albert Pujols, Felix Hernandez and Ken Griffey Jr.

[Seth Payne]

In MLB the Show 26.

[Sean Pendergast]

Collect them all and current all Stars to build your perfect lineup.

[Seth Payne]

MLB the Show 26 is available now

[Sean Pendergast]

on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series XS, and Nintendo Switch.

[Seth Payne]

Rated E for everyone.

[Sean Pendergast]

Officially licensed by MLB Players, Inc. Would

[Seth Payne]

you look at that?

[Sean Pendergast]

It's time for some of our favorite snapple reel facts. Reothack 1433. Toe wrestling is a competitive sport. Reothack 732. The chicken is the closest living relative of the Tyrannosaurus rex and reeled back 15. A man once ate an entire airplane. Yowch. Did he have any hot sauce?

[Seth Payne]

Yep.

[Sean Pendergast]

So anyways, this has been a refreshing break, brought to you by Snapple. Real tea, real juice with snaps and refreshing. Presented by T Mobile, the official wireless partner of Odyssey Sports. With an awesome network and great savings, there's never been a better time to join T Mobile. Visit your neighborhood store to make the switch today. Hey, y', all. I'm Maddie.

[Cole Thompson]

And I'm Poodle.

[Seth Payne]

And together we host the podcast Reality.

[Cole Thompson]

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

[Seth Payne]

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

[Cole Thompson]

All. New shows every week. Follow and listen to reality gays wherever you get your podcast.

[Seth Payne]

It's got to be hot.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes. Yes.

[Seth Payne]

Well, Byron, how hot is it in Morocco right now? Don't give me any centigrade bs.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah.

[Seth Payne]

They're going to try to spit a centigrade at you. I don't know what any of it is.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's looking it up.

[Seth Payne]

I see these Canadians sometimes being like, it's 37 degrees centigrade. I'm like, I. I don't know what to do.

[Sean Pendergast]

No.

[Seth Payne]

I don't know how to respond to that.

[Sean Pendergast]

Get on our level. Fahrenheit.

[Cole Thompson]

All right.

[Sean Pendergast]

From 96.

[Seth Payne]

96 degrees in Morocco right now. Okay.

[Sean Pendergast]

It sounds a little.

[Seth Payne]

It sounds like Houston. It sounds less humid, actually. It's probably delightful.

[Sean Pendergast]

Do they have roofs on their stadiums? That's the question.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

I would hope so. I would hope so.

[Seth Payne]

Well, you know, all these other countries have to build stadiums for the. For the World Cup.

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, that was the big thing. Okay, so this gets losers. This gets to what I was gonna hit here now that the World Cup's over. I enjoyed this world. I enjoyed this World Cup a lot more than I thought I would. Not that I'm anti World cup or anti soccer. It became a much bigger part of my routine than I had ever anticipated. We watched a lot of the games, Amy and I did, I think, just casual fan. Cause there's a lot of people I know listening out there that didn't watch any of the games, that only watched some of the games.

[Seth Payne]

Maybe still were, but you still saw some content coming.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. And that's kind of. So the biggest. My. For me, the biggest casual fan memories of the World Cup, I think number one is that there was this period really leading up to Baligan's red card getting overturned where. Where there was this love affair going on with the United States from the rest of the world.

[Seth Payne]

I think that continued on afterwards because if anything, there was a. There was a. There was a realization by a lot of people visiting the United States that, like, oh, okay, you know what? Just like it is as it is, whenever anything's in the world news, you see nothing but the negative. And a lot of people have this perception in the United States of us like, all being a certain type of way as people or that there's gun violence everywhere or anything. So having. Having all these people being so, like, pleasantly surprised that it's actually a really fun place to be. Yeah, that was really cool. I felt like it was a little bit. Bit. A little bit of Kumbaya for the entire world.

[Sean Pendergast]

I think that way sometimes, too. Like, you see these. These other countries, you know, like in the other hemisphere.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

And there's, you know, there's stuff going on in those countries, too. And that's all you ever see on the news. And you feel like you still like, I like my. I'm not going to name countries.

[Seth Payne]

Well, no, I'd say the Middle east in general, like. Yeah, people have a perception of the Middle east is like, you walk out the door and there's nothing but rubble everywhere. Right, right.

[Sean Pendergast]

And people are shooting at you and there's bombs going off and everything else. And that may have been, to a degree, the impression people had here. It was really cool to see that. It was really cool to see them appreciate, like, the comforts and the amenities

[Seth Payne]

that we like a lot of the cliches about. Like, especially in Texas, they do it bigger in Texas. They're like, it really is.

[Sean Pendergast]

It really is bigger in Texas. Holy cow. Refillable drinks.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

I can't believe I get refilled. I just walk up to the machine.

[Cole Thompson]

Ranch being a big one, too.

[Sean Pendergast]

Ranch dressing where they had.

[Cole Thompson]

They had to go through TSA and they were getting bags pulled because they were trying to sneak ranch back.

[Seth Payne]

My favorite thing was this. The whole. You get used to seeing on social media Europeans being like, the Americans do not understand food or cuisine. And then meanwhile, you have all these Europeans coming over, and they're like, oh, my gosh, whataburger is so incredible. Oh, they have so many McDonald's here.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, this white cafe, white cassette.

[Seth Payne]

Like, wait a second. I was on. Under the impression that you guys are all over there eating seven course meals every night.

[Cole Thompson]

Chips and salsa. That's free at the table.

[Sean Pendergast]

You speak of Free chips and salsa was a big one.

[Seth Payne]

I knew about the apple pie, but I did not know that it could be deep fried.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes, yes. All right. Other casual fan memories from the World Cup. The saga of Freddy Freddie, the German superfan, who, of course, was partially subsidized by J.J. watt on his ship. J.J. got him a nice room at the Post Oak and some other things, but that happened almost everywhere he went. To me, the funniest part of the Freddy story was the very predictable storyline arc that he Would have on where

[Seth Payne]

he realized, like, oh, like a rockumentary where, like, oh, you see the downside of.

[Sean Pendergast]

We liked you when you were a garage man, Freddy, and now you're this big.

[Cole Thompson]

Take a dark turn down the path of nowhere. Yeah, yeah.

[Seth Payne]

The funniest part of that about that was people were so eager to claim that he was like, oh, he's a corporate sellout or whatever. And you would see people saying. And like this people in media saying, like, I don't know, I thought it was refreshing. But now he just turned into a big corporate thing. And you look down his timeline, it's like he visited NASA.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Like. Like somebody at a counter at a fast food restaurant gave him a free meal or something. It wasn't like he was accepting ads from places.

[Sean Pendergast]

No. He was getting offered to go places on private jets. He chose to go to, like, Vermont and walk around a small town and drive a little league baseball game.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, yeah. Like, he really took in the experience and looked like he had no desire at all to actual. For. For actual fame.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right.

[Seth Payne]

You know, like, never showed his face.

[Sean Pendergast]

He never showed his face.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, because it was a Cristiano Ronaldo meme, wasn't it? Like, as the logo on his.

[Sean Pendergast]

Whatever it was that was his avatar. Yeah, yeah. But he would put like smiley faces over him and his buddies. Yeah, the Cabo Verde Cinderella story.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, that was cool.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, that was.

[Seth Payne]

That was cool. But it was also a little bit of same way. I like some. Sometimes. Sometimes it takes away a little bit of the mystique of the major league pitcher when Cesar Salazar comes in and mows three. Three batters down as a pitcher. Like. Or Jake Myers, you know, like Cesar Salazar was rocking a 0.0 right.

[Sean Pendergast]

Now when I picture mosin down, I picture like 99 miles an hour heat.

[Seth Payne]

I don't know. It doesn't seem all that hard or difficult. So I'm like. With soccer, I'm kind of like this guy who's selling insurance comes in and pitches shutout in the world Cup. How hard is this game?

[Sean Pendergast]

Everybody. Everybody's excited about the world cup. And Seth's over screaming small sample size.

[Seth Payne]

Doesn't seem all that difficult to me.

[Sean Pendergast]

Small sample size.

[Cole Thompson]

What, blocking three shots? Not that ch.

[Seth Payne]

About speaking about, though. Impressive things on my pitchers yesterday. The. The pitcher for the. The Orioles. Yesterday's pitcher.

[Cole Thompson]

Young.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, Brandon Young. That little hacky sack thing he did.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, he skipped it up to himself.

[Seth Payne]

Yes. Hit his leg and then he popped, hopped it with his foot up and then threw maybe out at first I

[Sean Pendergast]

thought I looked at. I didn't see it live. I didn't see that play live. I watched most of the game. I didn't see that play live. But I saw the side view of it that somebody put up of just him. I'm like, he must have just been doing that like during messing around during

[Seth Payne]

warm ups or something. Like Tiger woods with the little tricks that he does with the ball, you know, with the ball on his club.

[Sean Pendergast]

Turn it through to first base.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

That was crazy. All right. The, the, the Baligan red card overturn will be one of the bigger soccer stories, I think of that. And is that a precedent that gets set where if there's enough complaining going on about a guy getting the punitive nature of the red card rules.

[Seth Payne]

I kind of. You know what? I had enjoyed forgetting about that whole thing because the US lost. So thank you for bringing it back up.

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, that's just, you know, people are going to remember those.

[Seth Payne]

Well, that was one of those annoying ones because all of a sudden there was a big controversy. They like to call it in World Cup.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep.

[Seth Payne]

And like, like by the time you dig into it, there's just way too many arguments on both sides for me to give a damn.

[Sean Pendergast]

I've always thought I said this the day after it happened that for a guy to get red carded out of a game, the team plays a man down.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

For the rest of the game and then he misses the next game is way too punitive.

[Seth Payne]

They were. Well, it was one of those. They had all the way to the guys who are forgiven their red cards to be allowed to play in the World Cup. Like I for one, if you try to take the US out of it and be as objective as possible, I think it was a good precedent because I agree with you. Like it's too punitive in the world elimination. Especially that. That if it ends up being a precedent where more countries do it, then whatever.

[Cole Thompson]

To your guys, say, what is your take in college football in the targeting role where if you get targeted in the second half, you have to miss the first half of the next game.

[Seth Payne]

I don't like any suspensions for in game stuff that carry over to the next. Well, especially now that college football players make money. Just find them.

[Cole Thompson]

Just find them.

[Sean Pendergast]

Find them. Hit them where it hurts.

[Cole Thompson]

They'll learn how to wrap up.

[Sean Pendergast]

Have they. Are you're the, you're the college football guy, Cole. Are they. Aren't they changing that rule to some degree?

[Cole Thompson]

This. Not this season but they're still reviewing It.

[Sean Pendergast]

They are.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. They are reviewing it to where hopefully they won't have a suspension going into the next.

[Seth Payne]

The NFL added extra things that they're allowed to Booth review, and I believe the illegal hits are one of them now, too. Yeah. So we're with. They're already doing. I felt like. I feel like the NFL has been pushing the envelope on what gets booth reviewed.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Above and beyond what's actually technically legal. But. But nobody. Nobody objects to that. Please do that.

[Cole Thompson]

College football's gotten better at that with targeting. Like, they've really tracked down on what actually is calling the other thing casual

[Sean Pendergast]

fan memories from the World Cup. The rituals for the different countries.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. The Norway rowing and everything.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. The Norway rowing and the big one here locally. Because it happened once, almost happened twice, but it happened here. The Netherlands and that.

[Cole Thompson]

The Orange Walk.

[Sean Pendergast]

The Orange Walk they do to the. The game. I talked to people who were. Who were part of that, and they said it's. It is one of the most incredible experiences they've had as it was like

[Cole Thompson]

I was so close to going. I just couldn't get over there in time that morning.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

The other part of that is that Jameis Winston was involved in partaking in so many of them. Like, the Jameis Winston stuff was a lot of fun. James Winston did a good job.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's good.

[Seth Payne]

I kept waiting for him to do something with France, but I figured there was some kind of like, a Roman Polanski. Like. Like we'd have to give him an amnesty or something if. If we're.

[Sean Pendergast]

If.

[Seth Payne]

Because the French are going to be like this. James Winston is out there, but you do not allow Roman Poland.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

When is the president. So there you go. And then my. My other favorite thing is soccer Seth winning our pool. I've mentioned that multiple times today, but I just.

[Seth Payne]

Do, you know, soccer winning our pool.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, soccer Seth winning our pool. Oh.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, yeah. Could I win something for that?

[Sean Pendergast]

I know. Don't know. They. I've heard.

[Seth Payne]

I thought you said soccer.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

No, no.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's all good. I. I remember Reggie and John, who were the organizers of this pool.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Saying that they were, like, pondering doing something, but it feels like. I don't know. Now that neither of them won, maybe they ponder their way right out.

[Seth Payne]

I think probably that because I was the person who participated least and yet won it all. It's kind of like that was my. Cesar Sal. Is our mowing down three batters in a row. Yeah. They're like, all right. Right. Well, I Think that's all the more

[Sean Pendergast]

reason you should get something. I think it's hilarious.

[Seth Payne]

This game's not that hard. I won the pool. I just. I. Yeah, it's a.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's.

[Seth Payne]

It bores me. Not because it's a boring game, but because it's too easy for like a Scantron for you.

[Cole Thompson]

Just circling then see all the time and.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. And get 100.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, yeah. There's 85. J.J. watt was at the World cup final over the weekend. He was also on social media a little bit over the weekend as well. A of couple. Okay. So is JJ out of bounds for doing this on social media? And he's. Is he the coolest guy ever for doing this other thing on social media over the weekend? We will discuss. We'll find out. Speaking of the guys on in the Loop, find out what they've got going on. Coming up.

[Seth Payne]

420-6-10 presents live from the West Point Lincoln and West Point Lincoln of Sugarland Studios. Here's Pain and Pendergast.

[Sean Pendergast]

Hi, Pain and Pendergast with you. So J.J. watt. J.J. watt had an interesting weekend. If we start the week. Weekend is Thursday. An interesting weekend on social media. He. I'll start with the. The part that he. He got some blowback for this.

[Seth Payne]

You did.

[Sean Pendergast]

I didn't have a big. I didn't have a big issue with it. He was just kind.

[Cole Thompson]

No issue with this. Wasn't.

[Sean Pendergast]

He was just taking up for his wife.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. But there are some people like, hey, man. A little. So apparently he and Kaylia and Koa, their older son, made the trip out to Salt Lake. It like, looks. Looks like to go to a real Salt Lake game. MLS game. And they tweeted a picture of JJ and his family coming down the tunnel. Walking down the tunnel. The team did. And they said, welcome to the riot at J.J. watt and fam with the emoji, the smiling emoji with the hearts over the eyes. And I didn't know this about Kaylia Watt, his. His wife. I didn't. I didn't. I knew she was. I didn't know the geography involved. JJ comment tweets. This tweet real Salt Lake, which again, is them welcoming him and his family to the game and. But only tagging him. Just calling it J.J. watt and fam. J.J. says the woman in the photo grew up literally down the road. Won four Utah state championships, one in this exact stadium. Gatorade player of the year, twice national player of the year, scored the fastest, fastest first goal in U.S. women's national team history could probably be worth a mention, but. Idk.

[Seth Payne]

Ah, yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

But I don't know. That sounds kind of like a verbal or like a written shrug emotion.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. Yeah. There's a little bit passive aggressive maybe.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

He's saying something nice about you.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, so he was just. So he's, you know, he's taking up for his wife. She's. It was almost like he's saying she's the real star.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, he does that pretty. Especially in the soccer context. Yeah, he's. He does a good job.

[Cole Thompson]

Especially because if she grew up in the state and she has ties to

[Sean Pendergast]

the game, it's four straight state championships.

[Seth Payne]

Welcome back to Kalia. Welcome, J.J. watt. And welcome back to Kaliyah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Jenna's been tagging her and fam.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. Welcome, Kalia. Oh, and this guy.

[Sean Pendergast]

This guy.

[Seth Payne]

The problem is that the social media person who did this is probably somebody who's 22 years old and didn't, you know, might not have even grown up in Utah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Of course, that's a good chance that happened that they aren't from Utah and that they're. They don't even know that she's a soccer player. Okay.

[Seth Payne]

Like, and not to mention, Cola scored three goals in his game yesterday.

[Sean Pendergast]

We're wearing a Utah jersey. So does the fact that I'm not sure we have enough time to read Real Salt Lake's apology mean they may have over apologized a little bit on this? We made an honest mistake yesterday, and we are sincerely sorry for that. When we welcome the Watt family to America for first field, we should have recognized Kaylee Awat for exactly who she is and then does two paragraphs. Oh, damn. They did her resume. They even had college. She started four years at North Carolina. Like they did. This is like a bio you would see in a media guy.

[Cole Thompson]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

For somebody and then tags both of them and says, we are deeply sorry. Thank you for all you do for the sport.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

So did they over apologize here? Do you think JJ felt like afterwards, like, okay, well, that wasn't totally necessary.

[Seth Payne]

Like, I don't know, the whole thing is. Whatever.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay.

[Seth Payne]

No, I don't think they over apologize. Okay.

[Sean Pendergast]

I mean, I'm like, boy, they went deep. I mean, pasted the whole bio in there.

[Cole Thompson]

No offense. How many people are watching an MLS bio. I mean, an MLS Twitter account to figure out if for a long term.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. You know, I could see like one. Like one or two sentence apology.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Like, you know, we grade.

[Cole Thompson]

This was an NFL team. I understand it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Who's paying Attention to the MLS during the World World cup, of all places.

[Sean Pendergast]

See, the other thing we can discuss with J.J. watt on social media was him going back and taking a picture with a fan. Who? The fan's name is Douglas Sandstorm. And he tweeted this. He was at a bar in New York because JJ went from Utah to New York for the World cup final.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

And he says, not proud of it. Man enough to say it, though. I had breakfast this morning in Greenwich Village, and a man sat next to me on. On his own. Somebody I idolized growing up watching the NFL. But out of respect, like a scared little girl, I didn't even ask for a picture. Not proud of it. Man enough to say it. Have a great day in New York at J.J. watt.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

So he tagged on, and basically, I was too chicken to walk up to you. Didn't want to bother him or whatever. JJ replies, and he says. Or he retweets it and he says, are you still in the area? And the two of them were able to find each other.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. Jay. The next picture from that guy was a picture of him standing next to J.J. watt in a bar.

[Cole Thompson]

The only thing he asked was, order me a Guinness. I'll be there in 15.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. Oh, that's what he said.

[Cole Thompson]

So he said, order me a Guinness. I'll be there in 15. Got the photo. What I thought was so funny is because they were both there for the World Cup. This guy is from Australia, so he loves football so much that it's just. He's a Texans fan. As a J.J. watts stand from Australia going to the World cup game, what

[Seth Payne]

they didn't show is the DMs, where JJ demanded that this guy list Kaliyah's accomplishments before he showed up.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

You know, you really should be wanting to take a picture. We're for soccer. You should be wanting to take a picture with a soccer player. She scored however many goals in this stadium. Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Did you guys see George Kittle commented on it?

[Sean Pendergast]

I, I, I did. Well, I saw George Kittle. Did he comment on this?

[Cole Thompson]

So he's. He, quote, tweeted and said, where's my photo? And then JJ took a selfie with the guy and said, I found you, bro. At the bar.

[Sean Pendergast]

The guy. Because the guy we're talking about looks

[Seth Payne]

a little bit like George.

[Sean Pendergast]

Kid looks a lot like.

[Cole Thompson]

Long hair, giant beard.

[Seth Payne]

George Kittle. Yet another one of the current NFL players who tweeted out a picture of the field. What do they call it? The kit? No, the pitch. Excuse me. The pitch. And said, hey, looks great. Why don't you do this for football? Which I have to restrain myself from pointing out because the average soccer player weighs 165 pounds.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

I tore two of my hamstring tendons off my pelvis on a temporary grass field at NRG stadium because it was such crappy grass, and it's not built to handle 900 pounds of, like, I was taking on a combo block on turf that gave out from underneath. Did I sue? No.

[Sean Pendergast]

So field turf is actually safer from that standpoint?

[Seth Payne]

I think so, yeah. If I were.

[Cole Thompson]

I thought MetLife had, like, the most injuries. Like, it was voted on as the most dangerous place to play for football.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. Like, but that their turf just so crap.

[Sean Pendergast]

Their football turf. That's where cj CJ Bounced his. Got his head.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, man.

[Seth Payne]

Man.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. The guy says, Douglas Sandstorm a day I'll never forget. The goat himself, J.J. watt, came to O' Hara's and put down a pint of Guinness in 1.5 seconds just to get a picture with me. I don't know if he's being literal about that.

[Cole Thompson]

Would it shock if he was, though?

[Sean Pendergast]

1.5 is tough.

[Seth Payne]

I don't think it's 1 point. Yeah. 1.5 is kind of world class.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

I used to be pretty good at. I can't remember what my.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, you're chugging Guinness, too. Of all things that you want to go. Yeah, it's a chugging motor oil, man. Truly grateful for this moment. A story I'll tell my family and friends for the rest of my life. So there you go. So, J.J. watt on social media over the weekend, Fan Fanatics Fest, I believe, is over now. Yeah, we didn't get as much stuff out of it this year as we did last year. Of course, last year, we're Rocket fans. So we got Kevin Durant getting traded to the Rockets literally in the middle of one of his Q and A's that he was doing the biggest thing we got yesterday. And I know this because we've had ESPN on in the studio all morning, and they've treated it like it was headline news was Cam Scatterbo doing a backflip. A standing backflip.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Landing somewhat awkwardly and falling on his ass.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

And keep in mind, for those who don't know, Cam Scatterbo had a broken tibia and some other injury last year, like a really bad injury to. To his legs last year. So obviously what he was doing. There are a lot of Giant fans there. Fanatics Fest is in New York. And you could tell, you know, before he did it, he pulled the pant leg up to show off the knee as if to say, look good is new, and then does the backflip cam. Scatterbo is not a smart person.

[Seth Payne]

No, of course he's a big. That's what people love about him. Yeah, he's just a big meathead.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes.

[Seth Payne]

He's kind of like a young Gronk in a lot of ways. And there's an appeal to that.

[Cole Thompson]

He's Gen Z Gronk.

[Seth Payne]

That's what we're going with.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes. I think. I think Gronk is actually. I think Gronk is actually somewhat intense, intelligent. I don't know that Scatterbow is. Scatterbow might be legitimately dumb.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. But they like that. But they. People love the image of a big head.

[Cole Thompson]

There's people out there that call him brain dead.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. Well, okay.

[Sean Pendergast]

He. Real quick audio. He was asked by somebody in the media, Scatterbo, when he was doing one of these interviews, do you like the wild man image that you've been. You've been given?

[Seth Payne]

Do you enjoy being, like, the wild maniac moniker? Like, is that insulting or is that, like, you? No, I totally enjoy that part.

[Sean Pendergast]

I think I less enjoy the brain

[Seth Payne]

dead kind of guy. But it is what it is.

[Cole Thompson]

I mean, the New York people love it, so I'm just gonna keep being

[Sean Pendergast]

me, and if they want to say I'm brain dead and I don't have no brain, then who cares?

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. Yeah. Who cares? New York people love brain dead people. Yeah. World record for chugging a beer is 1.3 seconds. So JJ, JJ might have a second career, world class as a world class beer chugger.

[Cole Thompson]

Text line says it's easier to chug Guinness than anything else because it's nitro beard. It doesn't have carbonation.

[Seth Payne]

It doesn't. Yeah. The carbonation is what gets.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Someone said a. But the same texture that you just read. Cole said buddy of mine did his ring dunk. Oh, the Aggie thing where you dunk that, you drop the ring. 48 ounces, 13.6 in Guinness, it's 48 ounces. 48 ounces in 13.6 seconds.

[Seth Payne]

There's a. The technique. There's a technique for it that's impossible to describe without it becoming a horrible drop that would be used against me. So, yeah, there's. Whenever you talk about or learn about chugging a beer, it's kind of. Yeah. You don't. Don't say it out loud because it'll be used against you.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep. I, I looked at that Fanatics Fest session yesterday. Scatterbo and Jackson Dart were both doing an interview with somebody. I didn't see who the interviewer was. And I just look at that. I'm like, oh, I, I don't know how I would do as a Giants fan knowing these, these are the two. You have Camp Scatterbo.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Who likes to bang his head. Literally likes to bang his head on walls before games.

[Cole Thompson]

Say it's a pregame ritual.

[Sean Pendergast]

Bangs his head on walls before games. And then you have Jackson Dart, who likes to bang his head off of other players when he's scrambling in the open field.

[Seth Payne]

I think the thing about the thing. What's so appealing for those guys, I think for Giants fans especially is they don't. Giants fans are, as a credit to them, I think, pretty realistic about what that team is going to be this year. You don't see a lot of Giants fans saying that they're going to win the, win the super bowl or anything.

[Sean Pendergast]

No.

[Seth Payne]

But they trust that John Harbaugh is the right guy to lead them into being a more respectable team. So I think they, they just really love, like they're not thinking about 10 years from now. They're thinking about can I watch some fun competitive football this year? And maybe Jackson Dart only has an eight year career. I don't want to think that too far in the future. I just want to see a guy that can make some incredible plays while, while he's still alive.

[Cole Thompson]

Where does your brain go if you are John Harbaugh watching that backflip though?

[Sean Pendergast]

If, if, if I, if I'm John

[Cole Thompson]

Harvard, I'm John Harbaugh watching that back, I'm nowhere near.

[Sean Pendergast]

Dude. I'm, I'm driving to Fanatics Fest to grab Cam Scatterboat by the shirt. Like, what are you doing, man? What are you thinking?

[Seth Payne]

I have a hard time. I don't. It's, it's tough because I've never done backflip successfully outside of, you know, when there wasn't water or foam. Foam cushioning involved. Yeah. Like, I don't. Is it really that big a deal if you're good at doing it? I mean it's not like the, if you practice a bunch. It's not like the, it's not like you're falling from a ten foot.

[Cole Thompson]

You better land on both feet though. That's.

[Sean Pendergast]

Well. And he did, but he stumbled. I think that's the big thing. The optics of yesterday.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. The fact that he stumbled.

[Sean Pendergast]

If he stuck the landing.

[Seth Payne]

It would be different.

[Sean Pendergast]

Stuck the landing? Yeah. If he stuck the landing, I would still think it's dumb to do, but Giants fans would have been like, yeah,

[Seth Payne]

I give Kamari credit. Kamari knows that if you don't stick it, you go down into that Wolverine pose. Remember he did that. Was it. Was it Kamari doing it? Yeah, Kamari did the back flip, and he kind of. He didn't do a full backflip, but he kind of landed in that. In that pose. And. And Kaylin Bullock's just kind of watching him.

[Cole Thompson]

Really cool.

[Sean Pendergast]

Fun.

[Seth Payne]

Fun thing.

[Cole Thompson]

No more.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep. All right. Reggie Atatula, John Lopez, they are here. They are in the loop. You're listening to KLTM, KTFMHD 2, Houston. An Odyssey Sports Station. Crosstalk.

[Seth Payne]

Clementine. Clementines. Reginald.

[Sean Pendergast]

DNM Auto Fishing. Don't.

[Seth Payne]

I'm trying to fight off scurvy.

[Sean Pendergast]

You know, I want to make sure that. How many does he have?

[Seth Payne]

He's got two little. Little clementines.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay. Don't eat too many. Right. If you eat too many of them, that's not good for you.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, yeah, yeah. He's got two.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's just got two.

[Seth Payne]

No, it's not bad for you. It's better than, you know, you know, eight Snickers bars.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Are you guys avoiding a bag of oranges?

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, yeah, I gotcha.

[Seth Payne]

Are you guys avoiding lettuce?

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, hell no. Well, you could have asked me this, like, 10 years ago, saying. Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

For these reasons.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Yeah. Am I avoiding lettuce? Yeah. For my entire life, I was.

[Seth Payne]

No. Yeah. Young man at Freddy's saved my life yesterday.

[Sean Pendergast]

What happened?

[Seth Payne]

Because I ordered a burger with lettuce, tomato and onion.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's what you get.

[Seth Payne]

Sir, we can't do the lettuce.

[Cole Thompson]

I was a teenager.

[Seth Payne]

Because you care about me. Like, no, we just don't have it.

[Cole Thompson]

I was a teenager in the late 2000s that drank actual four locos. My stomach's already going to be screwed up. Lettuce can't kill it at this point.

[Seth Payne]

I'm kind of at this point hoping for the parasite or whatever that is

[Sean Pendergast]

to see what it's like. Well, see what all the hype is about.

[Seth Payne]

It's. One of my best weight loss loss strategies is getting the flu every now and then and you lose £20. And I know a lot of it's water weight, but if you don't eat that whole time.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

You lose a bunch of weight.

[Sean Pendergast]

You do have the mental capacity to get through.

[Seth Payne]

So I've heard people Talking about it

[Sean Pendergast]

firsthand, it sounds like it is gnarly, like.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, I probably should.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah.

[Seth Payne]

This one sounds like it. It affects your mental, but not directly. It's just it.

[Sean Pendergast]

It breaks your will to keep going.

[Seth Payne]

Really? Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

I knew I was ahead of my time.

[Seth Payne]

I take it back.

[Sean Pendergast]

Avoiding lettuce all these years. Never wrong.

[Seth Payne]

Just early.

[Sean Pendergast]

What I've been saying. Been telling you guys for years, what with all the lettuce. Okay, so do we know what Seth's grand prize is going to be for winning the. The annual? Well, the. What? What's the word?

[Seth Payne]

Don't say first annual.

[Sean Pendergast]

No, no, no. What do we say, like, every four years? The. Every four years. The quadrennial. The quadrennial. Reggie and John in the loop pool. What is his prize?

[Seth Payne]

So you had Cabo Verde, Egypt, Spain and Switzerland. Yeah. So you get to pick any of

[Sean Pendergast]

those countries, and we'll get you a

[Seth Payne]

gift card to one of those restaurants. Oh, oh, yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

You've been talking about wanting to go to that awesome Swiss restaurant.

[Seth Payne]

What, the candy store with my leader hosing on.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

You're into that cool Cabo Verde place over in Kirby. Be. Would it be, like, what is it? What are my other other countries? Switzerland, Spain and Egypt.

[Cole Thompson]

Egypt.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, I don't know what Egyptian food is like. Well, you're about to find out, big dog. Okay, pick a country.

[Sean Pendergast]

Pick a country. Egypt.

[Seth Payne]

I'll try to find an Egyptian place.

[Sean Pendergast]

Restaurant.

[Seth Payne]

Okay.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. All right. Congratulations, Seth.

[Seth Payne]

It's probably going to be like a taco stand at a gas station.

[Sean Pendergast]

We're going to Disney World. Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, rolling and doing the King Tut dancing, everything. Just. Just be a real jerk about it. There will be some cash outside of this so that, you know, you don't. You don't feel like you're boxing. No, I don't. I didn't expect any cash.

[Sean Pendergast]

Hey, speaking of the. I would have if I had one. Just to be clear, what will this. We were talking about this a little earlier this hour. What will this World cup be most remembered for, do you think? Not Non. Soccer. Non soccer. Like, not like, hey, the fight in Argentina. And some of these games, like, all the themes for, like, the last six or seven weeks. Like, there's been a lot around this World Cup.

[Seth Payne]

Well, there has been. And I'm thinking, obviously here, first of all, the Americans rise and fall. You know, just in general. Yep.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep.

[Seth Payne]

But I think the buzz.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Like this, actually. And that's actually something we're going to talk about today at some point. Like, was it good for you? Was it enough for you to come back, even just casually here and there, you know, for soccer?

[Sean Pendergast]

For me, it was like, I legitimately miss the. Just the content during the day. Like, I. I liked. I liked walking into places. There's a game on. I liked being at home. Turn on. There's a game on. And I got into it. It was. It was. It was a lot of fun. I think that's what it'll be. I do, too. I think just the love affair with America for several weeks, part of it,

[Seth Payne]

too, is like, it's different because it was in Houston as well. So that makes it different, too. That makes it a lot different.

[Cole Thompson]

Yep.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's almost like a subset of the fact that it was in the United States. That was the thing that I was going to point to, was not just that it's the World cup, but being able to host it, I think got a lot more people into the spirit of it.

[Cole Thompson]

You kind of get more of a feel.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's not just, hey, this is an event that everybody cares about. You felt it because even if you

[Seth Payne]

were not invested in it, you went

[Sean Pendergast]

down to get yourself some barbecue and

[Seth Payne]

you're like, look at all these people

[Sean Pendergast]

here that are experiencing this because you see all these beef ribs that aren't typically ordered, and you go, okay. They're very much acclimating to our culture. Again, some feel of it. And I think that that drew some people in. I think it's those things.

[Cole Thompson]

It's. It's. It's the Scottish. Absolutely ravishing. Boston.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's.

[Seth Payne]

It's the Iran. You walk down.

[Sean Pendergast]

Down greenbrier regions.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Rowing.

[Seth Payne]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

Sitting on the dirty, grimy floor of the subway in New York. Rowing, I think. I think those are the things that are going to be indelible.

[Cole Thompson]

I thought it was cool that for the first time, it felt like that you weren't meeting people, like, from New York or Kansas.

[Seth Payne]

Latte for Keenan.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's me. Hey, you're.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Buying a car online on Autotrader. Really?

[Seth Payne]

But unlike other sites, you can start online, test drive with a local dealer, then finish online or at the dealership.

[Cole Thompson]

Cool. Enjoy.

[Seth Payne]

Buy your car online on Autotrader.

[Cole Thompson]

Really?

[Seth Payne]

Diamond Dynasty has all new red diamond cards and World Baseball classic content in MLB the Show 26.

[Sean Pendergast]

Collect your favorites and compete against the best.

[Seth Payne]

MLB the Show 26 is available now

[Sean Pendergast]

on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series XS, and Nintendo Switch.

[Seth Payne]

Rated E for everyone. Officially licensed by MLB Players, Inc. Would

[Sean Pendergast]

you look at that? It's time for some of our favorite Snapple reelfacts. Real fact 1433 Toe wrestling is a competitive sport. Real fact 732 the chicken is the closest living relative of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. And reel back 1599aman once ate an entire airplane. Y Did he have any hot sauce?

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

So anyways, this has been a refreshing break brought to by Snapple Real Tea, Real Juice with Snaps and Disney Refreshing presented by T Mobile, the official wireless partner of Odyssey Sports. With an awesome network and great savings, there's never been a better time to join T Mobile. Visit your neighborhood store to make the switch today.

[Seth Payne]

History that Doesn't Suck is a legit,

[Cole Thompson]

hard hitting American history podcast told through entertaining stories.

[Seth Payne]

History that Doesn't Suck An Odyssey Podcast

[Sean Pendergast]

available wherever you get your podcasts.