Payne and Pendergast July 30th , 2026 Full Show

Summary

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Payne & Pendergast – July 30th, 2026: Full Show Summary

Episode Theme & Overview

Live from Day 2 of Texans Training Camp, Seth Payne and Sean Pendergast deliver sharp, irreverent analysis and inside access to all things Houston sports. The show’s main focus this episode is Houston Texans training camp: player updates, CJ Stroud’s contract negotiations, positional battles, injury news, and a side-helping of Astros talk as they claw back to .500. The tone is high-energy and unfiltered, with classic radio banter, expert breakdowns, and notable moments from Texans and Astros beats.

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Texans Training Camp: Key Highlights & Analysis

Training Camp Atmosphere & Structure

• Pads Coming On Monday ([05:35]):
  Seth likens the first camp days to slow buildup:
  "This is like a tantric lovemaking training camp... we're going to really take our time and explore each other's bodies out here until Monday. And then we're getting into it."
• Both offense and defense had strong moments—players “landed punches” on each side and looked engaged.

C.J. Stroud’s Command & Growth

• C.J. Stroud appears firmly in control as starting QB ([07:57]):
  • "He certainly looks like he’s the starting quarterback." – Seth Payne
• Nick Caserio on Stroud’s offseason ([11:30]):
  • "He’s had a really good offseason. It’s probably the best offseason he’s had since he’s been here... we’ve definitely had productive conversations over the course of the spring. So, there’s a possibility that something could come to fruition."
• Seth sees this as encouragement Stroud will extend his contract soon, buoyed by player and team optimism.

Contract Negotiations: C.J. Stroud Extension

• This has shifted from “radio silence” to open dialogue:

  • Stroud: "Seems like everything is going great" ([14:46])
  • Nick Caserio and Adam Schefter confirm talks, but progress may be slow ([20:00]):
    • Schefter: "The Texans are behind the guy... I think they're going to try to move ahead with a contract extension this summer."

• Market Reality Discussion ([12:34 – 17:28]):

  • Current QB annual salaries: mostly $55M range; market could “explode” to $65M+ next year.
  • Seth: Caserio likes to “get out in front” of rising prices.
  • Sean: "I think it's a greater than 50-50 chance that there's a contract in the works for him."
    • Puts odds at -130 that Stroud gets an extension soon.

• Notable moment: Both hosts wisecrack about CJ’s recurrent phrase “holding down my bargain,” with Seth humorously critiquing Stroud's idiom usage ([15:13]).

Training Camp Observations: Who’s Impressing, Who's Battling?

Offensive Line

• Focus on added size and physicality ([46:13 – 48:42]):
  • "There is, as they’ve talked about, really focusing on the physicality on the offensive side of the ball... these guys are put together." – Seth
• Right tackle spot is a true competition between Braden Smith and Trent Brown ([49:01]):
  • Slight edge for Smith currently; both healthy and massive.

Offensive Cohesion & “Precision”

• “Precision period” now a mainstay in camp: coaches and players emphasizing smooth pre-snap motion, reduced errors ([50:24 – 51:56]).
  • Sean: "They looked cohesive and... precise."
• Nick Caserio ([52:06]): "The core foundation of what we’re going to do offensively will probably be installed within the first two weeks... it’s about what the players do well."

Backfield

• David Montgomery headlines as veteran power runner; Jawar Jordan is an “intriguing” camp standout ([55:47 – 56:58]):
  • DeMeco Ryans: "Really good room of running backs... excited to see the growth of that group throughout camp."
• Emphasis on running backs’ vision, pass protection, and special teams value.

Tight Ends

• Much deeper group this year ([59:08]):
  • Ryans: "We have a really deep group. We have six, seven guys who can play... should allow us some cool things when it comes to 12, 13 personnel."
• Notable moment: Foster Moreau drawing attention for both form-tackling after a pick and perceived shift in offensive mentality ([60:38 – 61:19]).

Defense

• Defensive backfield adding wrinkles, more disguised coverages (increasingly possible with veterans like Reed Blankenship).
• Kamari Lasseter with a standout interception on Stroud ([07:26]), stoking hopes for defensive versatility.
• Linebacker battle for third spot includes Jamal Hill, Marte Mapu, Wade Woodas, Casey Osai, Jake Hanson ([63:26 – 64:29]).
• Will Anderson: Emphasizing leadership and big-picture goals:
  • "Coach talks about putting a bull on the ring. That's something we've never done in the city. Bring something special back to this city." ([66:25])
  • Wants to mentor rookie Kaden McDonald and connect with teammates.

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Texans Injury & Roster Notes

WR Injury Updates

• Jalen Knoll: Finger injury, expected out “a few weeks” but management sounds unconcerned ([23:33])
• Tank Dell: Not on PUP list but won’t practice fully yet. Team expects him back for regular season. Being careful but optimistic. Nick Caserio explains strategy:
  • "He won’t be on the practice field [yet], but we’re keeping him off the list because it lets him participate in mental reps..." ([26:09])

DE/Edge Depth & Jadeveon Clowney

• Rumors of Texans interest in a reunion with Jadeveon Clowney ([29:42]):
  • Seth: "He makes a huge impact in the run game, does the things DeMeco likes... would fit right in."

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Astros Check-In: (.500 at Last!)

• Team is .500 at 55–55, one game back of the Rangers ([34:58]–[36:03]).
  • Sean: "Biggest series of the year" upcoming vs. Rangers.
• Jeremy Peña praised for new leadership role; echoes of earlier clubhouse chemistry.
• Trade deadline rumors: Jeff Passan reports Astros may pursue reunion with George Springer ([37:56]).
• Seth: Sober analysis of what a returning Springer would bring, given age and injury history—but acknowledges leadership and “intangibles.”

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Miscellaneous Noteworthy Moments

Banter, Quotes & Running Jokes

• The Guam Ambassadorship saga: Seth’s recurring self-satire about never getting appointed to Guam, poking fun at obscure political misadventures ([03:27], [79:04]).
• “Holding down my bargain”: Seth and Sean riff on CJ Stroud's mangled idiom ([14:46], [41:48]).
• Pension talk: Seth’s gallows humor about NFL pension plans and making it to age 65 ([44:29]).
• Clowning on the Replacements as the “worst cast football movie,” in offensive line discussion ([47:44]).
• Frequent playful derision of other radio hosts and local sports media.
• Will Anderson’s rapid-fire platitudes as “must listen” (and impossible to play at 2x) ([66:03 – 67:04]).

Social Media & NFL News

• Brandon Aiyuk’s social media antics and his possible fit with the Commanders ([73:52])
  • Sean & Seth: Skeptical any team would long tolerate his drama; contrast with George Pickens’ surprising professionalism.
• NFL contract comparisons: Safety and CB market setting new highs—good omens for young Texans stars to get extended soon ([82:04]).

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Timestamps to Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamps | | :--- | :--- | | Texans camp kicks off; Astros .500 | 02:12 – 05:11 | | First impressions from camp (offense/defense) | 05:35 – 07:54 | | CJ Stroud & contract talks (Nick/CJ/Schefter) | 11:30 – 21:36 | | Jalen Knoll & Tank Dell injury updates | 23:33 – 28:43 | | Jadeveon Clowney return discussion | 29:42 – 34:17 | | Astros talk (.500, trade rumors) | 34:58 – 40:48 | | O-line, right tackle battle (Smith vs. Brown) | 46:13 – 49:01 | | “Precision” on offense and Nick Caserio on OC | 50:24 – 53:41 | | Running backs & RB depth | 55:47 – 57:49 | | Tight end depth & Foster Moreau (“punk no more”) | 59:08 – 61:37 | | Defense, LB battle, and Will Anderson speeches | 63:26 – 71:34 | | Contract market, Lassiter/Bullock, future cap | 82:04 – 85:52 |

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Memorable Quotes

• Seth Payne on Training Camp:
  "This is like a tantric lovemaking training camp for the first... we're really going to take our time and explore each other’s bodies out here until Monday." ([06:29])
• Nick Caserio on CJ Stroud’s Offseason:
  "He’s had a really good offseason. It’s probably the best offseason he’s had since he’s been here." ([11:30])
• CJ Stroud: "Seems like everything is going great." – on contract talks ([14:46])
• Sean Pendergast:
  "I got CJ getting a contract right now in the Pendergast Sportsbook at -130. I think it’s a greater than 50-50 chance." ([16:15])
• Will Anderson Jr.:
  "Coach talks about putting a bull on the ring. That’s something we’ve never done in this city... Bring something special back to this city." ([66:25])
• Seth Payne on NFL Pension Reality:
  "They're banking on a lot of us to die... I'm cleaning up at 65." ([44:29])

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Takeaways for Houston Fans

• Texans are building on last year’s growth: Improved “precision,” O-line size, backfield depth, coaching clarity.
• CJ Stroud’s extension feels closer: Both sides “encouraged,” market about to explode, Texans may try to get ahead of the curve.
• Astros are back in the playoff race: Leader emerging, core identity returning, and possible nostalgia trade at the deadline.
• Defensive continuity and depth: New wrinkles, versatile DBs, and elite pass rush remain team calling cards.

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For Further Listening

• Tune in at the 7:00 hour for Seth’s “Notebook Dump” segment for detailed camp-play breakdowns.
• Full contract segment and injury updates between [11:30 – 28:43].
• Astros/MLB trade talk around [37:55].
• Will Anderson speeches and leadership goals: [66:25 – 71:34].

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Transcript

[Sean Pendergast]

Hey, what's up flies? This is David Spade. Dana Carvey. Look at. I know we never actually left, but I'll just say it. We are back with another season of Fly on the Wall. Every episode, including ones with guests, will now be on Vimeo. Every Thursday you'll hear us and see us chatting with big name celebrities. And every Monday, you're stuck with just me and Dana. We react to news, what's trending, viral clips follow and listen to Fly on the Wall. Everywhere you get your podcasts

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[Seth Payne]

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[Seth Payne]

We coming to eighth time.

[Demico Ryans]

Let's get the work in man.

[Ad Voice]

Let go.

[Sean Pendergast]

Great day. Great day.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, give me some juice.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh yeah, let's do it. Yeah, let's do it. The open to this show hits a little different at training camp time. It hits a little different because I think that dico going Great day, great day. Give me some juice baby. I think is a training camp cut from back in the day that has survived four years now because Demiko Ryan's is still the head coach.

[Seth Payne]

It was a who would have not who would have thought back then. That on July 30, we'd be opening the show not just during a training camp, but with an Astros team that's officially a 500 baseball.

[Sean Pendergast]

Back to 500. Yeah. They can look down their noses at all the sub 500 teams.

[Seth Payne]

Never thought we'd see the day where the Astros would. Would battle it out and be a 500 baseball team.

[Sean Pendergast]

55 and 55. Welcome in, everybody. Sean Pendergast, Seth Payne. We're live at Texans training camp. What's wrong? It's this clamped over here.

[Seth Payne]

It's this damn Houston phenomenon that happens where the condensation. Oh, no. Your computer was in air conditioning and now it's not. It's completely. It will not function because there's a. Because there's condensation all over my computer.

[Sean Pendergast]

Take all the napkins.

[Demico Ryans]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Here you go. This is why I didn't accept the ambassadorship to Guam. Just the issues with humidity.

[Sean Pendergast]

Because you talked about that your whole life.

[Seth Payne]

I did.

[Nick Casario]

I really did.

[Seth Payne]

I studied up on it and everything, you know. Damn. There were certain things I wouldn't bend on, though, Sean. There are certain policy points that the. That the president, who was president at the time, said, Seth, listen, you got.

[Sean Pendergast]

You're a man of principle. Unflinchingly rigid.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Demico Ryans]

Yep.

[Seth Payne]

Do we have an ambassador to Guam?

[Sean Pendergast]

I have no idea. I have no idea. You know what?

[Seth Payne]

I spent the next 10 minutes talking about that.

[Sean Pendergast]

You know what? I can tell someone got some sleep last night.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, really?

[Sean Pendergast]

You?

[Seth Payne]

Oh, me?

[Nick Casario]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Did you?

[Seth Payne]

I had energy yesterday.

[Sean Pendergast]

You did? No, I know, but you're.

[Demico Ryans]

You're.

[Seth Payne]

I did. I got some sleep last night. It was. There was. You know, yesterday was fun because it was training camp. Cause I'd had some flight delays. For those of you who missed it. I got 90 minutes of sleep and it was kind of hard to be affable around all these sweaty people.

[Sean Pendergast]

I thought you did fine, all things considered.

[Seth Payne]

Well, the Astros being 500 helps a lot too.

[Sean Pendergast]

Absolutely.

[Seth Payne]

I'm gonna be brutally honest with you. I fell asleep at 7pm last night. I woke up to the news that the Astros were.500.

[Sean Pendergast]

I woke up. This is three straight nights because I don't. If it starts at 8:40, I ain't staying up for the whole game most time. So this is three straight nights of waking up to, you know, 3:30 in the morning. I think I'll check the phone. And 12 Mark Berman tweets that get pushed notified to me.

[Seth Payne]

Berman's the hardest working young cub reporter in sports.

[Sean Pendergast]

He is he's every bit as hardworking as he was when he was in actually active journalism.

[Seth Payne]

This kid's got gumption.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's. He's got moxie is what he's got. Seth and he's, and he's got.

[Seth Payne]

A lot of people are down on Gen Z, but this Berman character, I

[Sean Pendergast]

think he's got gumption, he's got chutzpah, he's got moxie. And the kids got. Want to, dare I say, you add all that up and he's got the it factor. This kid's got the it factor. This Berman.

[Seth Payne]

Do it, Berman.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. All right, so let's get to, let's get to the, the heart of the matter here with the Ash. We'll get to. The astros got back to.500 last night. That's good news. One game out of the division, one game out in the wild card. The Rangers play tonight. So the Astros could enter this series this weekend against the Rangers a half game out of first place. Yeah, that's exciting. So we got that training camp yesterday. Overall, feel how you feel about what you saw.

[Seth Payne]

I think if I had to sum it up in one thing that I thought was very encouraging was that there was some back and forth with the offense and the defense. Not that they're, they didn't have any, you know, periods where they were going to where the offense was trying to go on a drive or anything. But I thought the offense landed some punches, the defense landed some punches. The crispness of the operation on offense is what they talked about during OTAs and minicamps. So that was really what I more than anything wanted to see is, okay, the offense look like they really are going up there and like it's their actual second year in a system and CJ is in full command. You don't have a lot of stoppages or anything because they're coming up to the line using pre snap motion and running plays and sometimes successfully running plays. Yeah, that was good. So far, so good. The pads don't come on until Monday, so.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. How did Nick Castario make you feel about the work we're doing out here Wednesday through Saturday?

[Seth Payne]

This is like a tantric lovemaking training camp for the first. We're going to really take our time and explore each other's bodies out here until Monday. And then we're getting into it because

[Sean Pendergast]

you always put that on the schedule. You know, you schedule it, you know,

[Seth Payne]

all right, guys, I'm going to have

[Sean Pendergast]

this many days of kind of leading into it. No, but he said Right out of the shoot, he's like, training camp really begins when you put the pads on. That'll be on Monday. I disagree. I think there's plenty of stuff to see out here yesterday in the next three days that we'll be bringing, especially

[Seth Payne]

in the passing game. And that's really where the. You know, when you look at this offense and you got to try to kind of look at when they're in their full team periods, there's not going to be a full pass rush because there's no pads on. But there were just so many times last year in training camp, whether they were wearing pads or not, the offense just couldn't even get a snap off. And that. That wasn't the case yesterday. No, I mean, there were. Look, Will Anderson made a couple of nice plays in the backfield.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's going to happen.

[Seth Payne]

Right, Right, right. Kamari Lasseter had an interception. That's going to happen. Going back to what Aaron Rodgers said last week, you want your quarterbacks throwing interceptions and incompletions in practice, that's the time to do it. So I think that, by and large, there were some really nice throws from CJ There were some throws that I think he wish he would have back, but that was a. I leave day one of training camp feeling better about the offense than I did last year during.

[Sean Pendergast]

How are you feeling about C.J. individually, I think.

[Seth Payne]

Okay. That's right. If you try to go out and

[Sean Pendergast]

this is going to matter in a couple of minutes when we play the audio from yesterday.

[Seth Payne]

Right, right. If you go out. I always try to think about at training camp, if I go out and pretend I don't know anything about these teams whatsoever. You know, and what would my impression be? I would be. My impression would be. Oh, okay. Yep. That he certainly looks like he's the starting quarterback.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's a starting NFL quarterback. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that that was a general consensus. I thought yesterday, other than the intercept, the interception was a bad interception.

[Seth Payne]

The interception, he tried to throw a

[Sean Pendergast]

jump pass over the middle across his body.

[Seth Payne]

But also, given where it happened on the field, there were a couple things that are intriguing about that because, you know, I didn't see where Kamari Lasseter had lined up initially, but the interception was in the middle of the field. So, you know, Kamari wasn't out on the boundary. There was whatever coverage they were in. I'm guessing that CJ was surprised by it a little bit and didn't expect Kamari Lasseter to be lurking there. And that's Good. Because, okay, defensively, one thing that we've talked about is, you know, they're very. They keep things very simple and vanilla. Sometimes that gets overly characterized or mischaracterized, that they don't disguise or anything. They. They do. They're just. They're not as heavy on it as other teams are. But I think that's one of the wrinkles the defense is going to start adding more of this year, especially now that they have Reed Blankenship back there, is that you've got five veteran defensive backs that can put a little bit more plate. Put a little bit more on their plate in terms of disguise and wrinkles in the defense, but still play aggressively downhill and fast. And I think you're going to see more of that from the defense, and I suspect that's what happened on that play. I'll talk to John Harris about it.

[Demico Ryans]

Yep.

[Sean Pendergast]

I. The thing I liked about that play was afterwards, when Foster Moreau decided to tackle Kamari Lassiter.

[Seth Payne]

I did.

[Ad Voice]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

That was fun.

[Seth Payne]

I just, you know, got a little chippy. I went. I got. I got. My eyes got bright and I turned around and I said to the first person I could see, oh, there's going to be some fights this year. Yeah.

[Ad Voice]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

And then Wexler said to me, like, well, good. And I. And I took offense to it. I'm going to talk to him about it today because he said it to me as. As if I had said, like, oh, no, there's going to be fights.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, like you were some kind of Mary.

[Seth Payne]

Like, he had to try to tell me, like, hey, hey, listen, listen, Seth, it's all right. If there's some fights out here. That's plenty. I was like, where would it. Where did I seem like a nervous Nelly and saying, there's going to be fights.

[Sean Pendergast]

Drawing battle lines between the two radio stations. There you go. All right. So. So I would.

[Seth Payne]

There will be fights.

[Sean Pendergast]

There will be fights. Yeah. Yeah. Well, when you're swarmy, that's what happens.

[Seth Payne]

Like, back in the day. Not that back in the day, everything was good, but there are a lot of coaches that would kind of almost get nervous if there weren't fights.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right.

[Seth Payne]

Training camp. Because you're like, what the hell are these guys? You know, do these guys have any juice to them? A lot of that's fallen by the wayside because coaches understand exactly, like, okay, look, guy breaks his hand in a fight, and then we're screwed, stupid. So you got to try to tamp it down. But you want to see a little Bit of that juice.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay. I think you and I were hearing some of the same things yesterday in the press conferences. Specifically. Yeah, definitely. Specifically when it came to C.J. stroud's contractual situation.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Which is, as it turns out, still ongoing. It's not dead. It's not just two sides who've hung up the phone and said, see you in February of 2027. This was Nick Casario at the. Towards the beginning of yesterday's press conference after he gave all the injury updates, which we'll get to that as well,

[Seth Payne]

Aaron Wilson asked him a question about where CJ Stands overall and contractually.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Stroud's off season, and here's what N had to say.

[Nick Casario]

Yeah, he's a really good off season. It's probably the best off season he's had since he's been here. He's had a good attitude. He's been consistent. He's got the right mindset, I'd say. We've definitely had productive conversations over the course of the spring. So, I mean, there's a possibility that something could come to fruition. So we'll work through it and, you know, see what happens.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, so productive conversations over the course of the spring. That's the first we've heard, I think, of productive conversations.

[Seth Payne]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

Or at least conversations that had an adjective in front of it at all.

[Seth Payne]

It's been radio silence, by and large. And the part that gets interesting from the team perspective is obviously. All right, well, you've had productive conversations. What kind of a number are we talking about here? The quarterback contract scenario in the NFL or. The landscape is that salaries, by and large, have been stuck at 55 million for a few years now, with a couple exceptions. Everybody except Dak Prescott and Patrick Mahomes are making around 55 million or less. And this would seem to be the year that there's probably going to finally be a bust out.

[Sean Pendergast]

Caleb Williams, Drake May and Jaden Daniels are all eligible for contracts next year.

[Seth Payne]

And Bo Nix.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right, and Bo Nix as well. And Bo Nix.

[Seth Payne]

And then you've got other guys like C.J. stroud who would still, theoretically, you know, if he doesn't have a new contract yet, Lamar Jackson's up for one. So next year is probably the year after a couple years of stagnancy, that it explodes.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep.

[Seth Payne]

And is that 65 million a year? Is that 70 million a year? We know that Kasario likes to get out in front of these things. He sees where the market is going and he says, all right, look, look, we'll buy now and it'll be cheaper later. That's where I just wonder with Mulligett and CJ Stroud are the conversations kind of, you know, look, hey, the market's going here, 65 million. And Nick might be saying, yeah, it's going there. But those are also. Those are deals where teams feel really good about their quarterback. Yes, we'd like to. Right now we might look at it as a bargain if we sign you for 55 million and we'd be comfortable with it, but we don't feel 100% comfortable going to 65 million.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's a fascinating dynamic because of all the GMs in the NFL, the one that is not afraid of doing things that reset a market that other GMs won't do, even little things.

[Seth Payne]

Guaranteeing second rounders.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's what I was just going to say. Even guaranteeing Jaden Higgins his entire contract when that had never been done at the top of the second round before. Nick Casario is not afraid to do it. He did it with the guy that was drafted one pick after CJ Stroud a few months ago in Will Anderson. He did it with Derek Stingley Jr. Who happens to be a David Mulligetta client. Yeah. So there's connective tissue here with CJ and specifically those two examples of guys who have literally been given top of the market contracts at their position. CJ Is a bigger risk than those guys right now as a player. That's just flat out the case. So there's that Casario audio. Add to that, this is what CJ Stroud very first question right out of the shoot, I think it was Aaron Wilson again asked about contract talks and how you handle those amidst training camp.

[Nick Casario]

Yeah, you take all the information in and just try to make the best decision possible. Have an understanding of what the market is, what are the dynamics.

[Seth Payne]

It's not necessarily about.

[Demico Ryans]

No.

[Sean Pendergast]

Byron, Byron, Byron. Shroud 1. Keep your phone nearby. Stroud 1. Here. Byron.

[Demico Ryans]

I think, you know, everything has been great. You know, I'm focused on ball, trying to do what the best, trying to just hold my bargain down on just the football side and do what I can, you know, and what I should be doing as a, as a quarterback of this team. So I'm letting them handle it and seems like everything is going great.

[Sean Pendergast]

Going great?

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

At the very end that the going great was the answer to productive conversations in Knicks.

[Seth Payne]

Cut. I'm not going to be comfortable with him getting a new deal until he figures out the saying, hold up my end of the bargain. That's the second time he's botched that.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's holding down his bargain.

[Seth Payne]

Seth, what did, what did he say during the spring? Said, I've held my bargain up on that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the fact that he said that, it's going great. This is, this is notable just because this is way more conversation about contracts by the team and by the players than we hardly ever get from the Texans. That's. There's, there's usually there's.

[Sean Pendergast]

We got nothing for six months on this. All of a sudden we got the quarterback saying it's going great and the GM saying they're talking.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, they're usually deaf mutes on this stuff, and they're not. It's like Helen Keller had a Miracles. Miracle.

[Sean Pendergast]

Exactly what I was thinking.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

The.

[Seth Payne]

I don't. So what do you. I guess for all spring long I've said, like, I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think it's going to happen. I was trying to figure out yesterday where I am on that now. Am I 50 or if the scales tip towards where I think it's actually going to happen.

[Sean Pendergast]

You know the language I speak, my love language is odds and gambling. I got CJ Getting a contract right now in the Pendergast Sportsbook at -130. I think it's a greater than 50, 50 chance that there's a contract in the works for him.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. And. Okay, now let me ask you this. If there is a deal, is it a $55 million a year deal or is it one that kind of resets the market for young corals?

[Sean Pendergast]

I think it's closer to 55. I don't think the Texans would give him. I don't think they'd reset the market with cj.

[Demico Ryans]

Those other.

[Sean Pendergast]

I don't think those other guys deserve to reset.

[Seth Payne]

Those other guys we've talked about are top 10 players, like established, affirmed, arguably top three. You know, they're all number one or two. Right. Like, yeah, I should say top five players in their position. Yeah. That CJ just simply isn't that right now. So I don't. The quarterback is always treated differently and handled differently. But yeah, as a team, I think there's got to be a certain point where you say, yes, we get it and we know quarterbacks are a different scenario. We like everything you're doing, but we just. We can't. We can't, as a signal to the rest of the team, say that like, hey, all you have to do is be, you know, average or slightly above average and we'll, we'll bend over backwards for you.

[Sean Pendergast]

Let's play one more here because this kind of adds up now. We were kind of poking fun at Schefter the few times he was alluding to both sides wanting to get a contract done a couple times this offseason on the heels and Byron, we're going to skip down to Schefter here if you're listening. Byron, we're going to skip down to Schefter on the heels of what Nick said yesterday because I don't think CJ had met with the media yet when, when schefter went on McAfee Show, Schefter had this to say about a possible CJ Stroud extension. The organization is absolutely behind him and the organization would like to get him re signed to a contract.

[Seth Payne]

And even though he did not walk

[Sean Pendergast]

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[Sean Pendergast]

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[Sean Pendergast]

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[Sean Pendergast]

The Texans are behind the guy like

[Seth Payne]

he's their quarterback moving forward, and I

[Sean Pendergast]

think they're going to try to move ahead with a contract extension this summer.

[Seth Payne]

And again, Nick Casario, the Texans general

[Sean Pendergast]

manager, came out this morning and said that they've had conversations they want to get that deal done.

[Seth Payne]

It doesn't sound like they've made a whole lot of progress yet, but I think it's something that Texans are going

[Sean Pendergast]

to keep trying to work at.

[Seth Payne]

And, boy, I had no idea that walking into a training facility would cause

[Sean Pendergast]

all kinds of reactions like that.

[Seth Payne]

So, for those of you who don't know, he's talking about the video from a couple days ago.

[Sean Pendergast]

They were clowning it for the minute or so before they had that conversation.

[Seth Payne]

So that wasn't like a. Metaphorically. He didn't walk in with the swag. He was literally. It was literal. Yeah.

[Nick Casario]

Yes.

[Sean Pendergast]

For those haven't seen it, there's a video of CJ walking into the facility where he looks like he's in fifth grade, backpack over both shoulders and whatnot. I think what's interesting there with what Schefter had to say is at least the way I'm interpreting it is he. He makes it sound like it's more coming from the Texan side than CJ Side in that cut that I heard right there.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

He said the Texans are trying to get something done.

[Seth Payne]

But then he also said, you know, there hasn't been a lot of progress. So that's. I don't. Do you take C.J. saying that? That. What is. How did C.J. say?

[Sean Pendergast]

Is it going really well? He said, it's going great. I. Look, I don't know who to believe. I just. I think the upshot of all this is that it appears there's talks going on.

[Seth Payne]

The fact that C.J. said it's going great, it could just be interpreted as like, okay, they're having congenial discussions. Or it could be that, all right, we're not that far apart, and maybe there's just some things on the periphery that we're talking about, or he's just

[Sean Pendergast]

trying to get to the next question.

[Seth Payne]

That's a really good point.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's just trying to move on.

[Seth Payne]

That's a really good point.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's going great.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, that's true. Like, when somebody asks you, how you doing? Yeah, it's going great.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's going great. Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

So like my house burned bound down last night, but I don't want to talk to you about it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, I've heard some things where it's not going that great. So, so I think that was, that was the big thing coming out of yesterday is that maybe there's a contract for CJ Stroud. I'm curious how Texan fans feel. We've got a text line out here so you can communicate with us. 713-572-4610. We mentioned earlier the Astros back at.500. They beat the Angels. Our 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, up next, injury updates on the Texans. We were bullish on Tankdale yesterday. How do we feel about this news on Tankdale? We'll get to that. And would you welcome back this familiar face. If you're a Texan fan, we'll get to all that Headlander gas. All right, Payton Pendergast, we are live at Texans training camp. Lots of stuff happened at yesterday both with the Texans and the Astros. We'll get to the Astros in headlines in the next segment. But let's start with the injury news with the Texans yesterday. If you missed the first segment, we talked plenty about the comments from both Nick Casario and C.J. stroud about Stroud's contractual situation. That'll pop up again later in the show. 7:00 clock today, we've got extensive things that Seth saw at training camp yesterday. If you're a Texan fan and you need the picture painted for you, if you need eyes and ears out here, we've got you covered really all day long. But particularly 7 o' clock today. Seth had a ton of great observations that we're going to dig into those and got a little audio to go around those as well from some of the guys that spoke yesterday. Here was Nick Casario on the injury Jalen Knoll, if you missed it, Jalen Knoll popped up on the non football injury list the day before camp began. Back on Tuesday afternoon, we got some clarity from Texans executive vice president and general manager Nick Casario yesterday and then Jay Noel.

[Nick Casario]

You know, honestly happened three, four days ago. I mean he's got a little bit of an issue with his finger. He's catching passes. He must have caught it the wrong way. So short term, not real concern. Probably be a few weeks, kind of see how he progresses.

[Seth Payne]

Okay. I got everything about that was reassuring until he said probably be A few weeks where? I wondered. Oh, okay. Well, that sounds like.

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, at least we know what body part it is.

[Seth Payne]

Right, right.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right after Joe Mixon last year.

[Seth Payne]

And you're tempted to always say, oh, it's just a finger, they could just pop it back in. No, right. And then you remember, oh yeah, he's a receiver. They kind of, they need all 10 of their digits typically. Yeah, yeah. The. Yeah, you just can't. Jason Pierre Paul your way through an NFL season is a. So I think that the fact that he said a few weeks made me wonder. Okay, well, hopefully that means I would hope it's a broken bone and not some kind of ligament issue or something. If they're saying it's going to be a few weeks, they.

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, they typically, they don't even say a few weeks. They just leave it open ended so that they're saying anything like that. I feel, I feel good that this one they've kind of got their arms around.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, yeah. I just. The other part about it, without worrying too much about something, we just don't

[Sean Pendergast]

worry about him just missing.

[Seth Payne]

Right, right, Exactly. That's what I was going to say. Is that like, oh man, this is, this is kind of critical. We've been talking about this last year. One of the things that held the offense back as well as CJ is that they were in a position where they were trying to get Jaden Higgins to come along as a rookie and he did a good job of that. But it took an entire season for him to really get into the groove and being, you know, a viable NFL wide receiver or I shouldn't say it took the entire season, but it was a process. Jalen Noel as well was sequestered behind Christian Kirk. Christian Kirk had his injuries. His injury issues. Yeah. I want Jalen Noel and Jaden Higgins to be out there as much as possible right now. Jaden Higgins had a really nice pass and then a little put the brakes on and a defensive back ran past him yesterday. So that was good. But we're not going to see that out of Jalen Noel for at least a few weeks.

[Sean Pendergast]

Not for at least a few weeks. Now I would say maybe the bigger mystery is when are we going to see Tank Dell. Tank Dell not on the pup, the physically unable to perform list. So that felt good when that list came out, like, oh, okay, well, Tank's been cleared to practice, but as you pointed out at the beginning of the show yesterday, just because he's cleared to practice doesn't mean he's going to do everything that his teammates are doing out here. And Nick Casario made that very clear at the beginning of his press conference. He laid this all out without even having people ask the question because he knew it would come up. He explains why Tank Dell is not on the PUP list as it pertains to Tank.

[Nick Casario]

So he's not on a PUP list. I'd say Tanks work really hard to put himself in a position. I say he still has some work to do. So you're not going to see him practice. Like he won't be on the practice field. He still has some things that he has to go through. But the reason that we're kind of keeping him alive and keeping him off the list because it enables him to participate in some drills or activities that you otherwise wouldn't be able to participate if you were on a reserve list or active PUP list. So whether it's our walkthrough, whether it's our precision check, some other things. So like you won't see him practice. Like you're going to watch practice and wonder where Tank is and say, wait a minute, Tank's not practical practicing well, it's by design. So he's got some ramp up work that he's still going to do. But there's some other things that we can do with him to kind of incorporate him into some, I would say, team crossover, slash walkthrough type situation.

[Seth Payne]

So, yeah, so with PUP and the rules get kind of confusing, but basically you got to be put on it at the beginning of training camp and then if you're on it all the way through training camp, then they could also put you on PUP at the beginning of the regular season and you get some roster exemptions for that. So for players that they might look at and say, boy, you know what, there's a real good chance that this guy might not be ready. So we want to just put him on pup and that saves us a roster space potentially you can activate him or whatever. So for Tank, it's an indication that they feel good enough about the chance of him playing in the regular season that they'd rather get him out there on the practice field and have him do what he can and follow their schedule instead of kind of hedging their bets and putting on the PUP where he wouldn't be able to do any football stuff right now. He would just continue on doing more of the rehab he's been doing for the past 18, 19 months.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's still overall a really good sign. It's a good sign. And the stuff that they. I think what's encouraging to me is that the stuff that Nick was describing, the Tank is allowed to do, seems to be all kind of mental stuff.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

And for a guy who hasn't played in this system yet. Now, I know we asked Nick about that in one of the hits that we did with him over the last year, so I know I asked him about it. Do you have any concerns about Tank getting up to speed on the playbook? Because both of the seasons he was active, it was Bobby Slowik's offense, not Nick Kaley's offense. Nick had no concerns about that. But the fact of the matter is he hadn't been on a football field doing anything competitive in over a year. And this is going to be an offense that once he's out, in between the lines, is new to him. So it's an opportunity for him to at least start to see how things work out.

[Seth Payne]

Right, Right. And just get those. Those reps in getting all the stuff that you want to get automatic, you know, and it. It really. It boils down to okay with a guy like Tank and with that catastrophic knee injury, you want as few variables as possible when he gets out there and starts to play actual football if you get out. And he's still kind of confused pre snap because he's not real comfortable in the offense yet. And then you add more uncertainty onto it because it's the first time he's been running routes against live. Like all of that just kind of adds up and makes it that much more of a recipe for a setback. So being super, super careful about it is. It's the smart thing to do right now. And I. I'm guessing just from the way that Kario has talked about it at times, it sounds like Tank is lobbying for more all the time. You know, like he's. I feel like Tank might be up there in front of Carcerio's office right this moment. Or d' Amico just, like, waiting to be like, hey, coach, you know, you know, I think we can be a little faster than this. They got to come.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's got his phone out and they're like, oh, Tank, what are you watching? Oh, just my highlights from my rookie year. This showing right up in his face, how impactful Tank Dell can be. How would you feel about a second era of Jadevian Clowney in Houston?

[Seth Payne]

I'd love it. I would be really, really cool with that. There's. There's news afoot, right?

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, there is. I'm looking at a tweet from Nick Schwager, who says the Texans have interest in former first first overall pick Jadevi on Clowney. According to Aaron Wilson, Clowney lives and trains in Houston. Bring him home. That's Nick's opinion, not mine. Although that is my opinion.

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[Sean Pendergast]

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[Seth Payne]

Choose yellow.

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[Seth Payne]

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[Sean Pendergast]

I'd like for them to bring him home. Look, you pointed this out throughout the off season.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

That is a position of need. Still on this team is upgrading the depth Behind Will Anderson Jr. And Daniel Hunter on the edges.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. And you know, right now he would be an upgrade. The replacements for Derek Barnett and Danico Autry are guys that are either young guys that have to come along or a guy like Dominique Robinson, who the Texans got out of Chicago, who's a very intriguing guy because he's like. I don't know if you saw him yesterday. Sean, I think I pointed him out to you.

[Demico Ryans]

He's big.

[Seth Payne]

Him and Ali Gay. Ali Gay's back in the fold. He's a younger guy who's a developmental guy still at this point in his career. But Dominique Robinson's a big dude and I think I can see the upside there. We've seen a lot of defensive linemen come into this team with d' Amico as the head coach and really kind of show the best version of themselves. So I think that they're hoping that Dominique Robinson works out. But Jedevion Clowney is a known quantity. And the nice thing about Jadevian is I feel like he's been gone from Houston long enough that from the fan's perspective, you don't, you don't have to think about whether this guy was worth his dress draft pick or not. You know, that's always been, it's really been that way with Clowney his entire career, really. He's a really productive player and he makes a huge impact in the run game. He does a lot of the things that d' Amico Ryan's really likes in his defensive lineman. You know, you can rush the passerby, you've got an element of physicality to you. He does all those things. And just because he's not a cornerstone franchise player, who the hell cares? That's not, that's not how you're going to be paying him. That's not the type of contract you'd get. And I think you'd fit right in in terms of his personality and mindset.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, I think it would be great. I think it would be great. And hopefully, hopefully that's something they can make happen.

[Seth Payne]

And it would be. We'd get to be a part of all these annoying conversations every single year with Jadevion Clowney where people are, all of a sudden they're like, hey, boy, Clowney's having a resurgence this year. No, he's just in a different uniform. This is how he's been playing every single year since he left Houston.

[Sean Pendergast]

Boy, it would be ironic though if he finally got double digit sacks on a team that has Will and, and Danil Hunter on it.

[Seth Payne]

Well, I mean, yeah, there's, there's arguments

[Sean Pendergast]

for why clown he gets 10 sacks. That means his defense was like first. Unless there's injuries.

[Seth Payne]

Well, no, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's like you get, you get a lot of the slough off of, you know, and Will and Danil benefit from that with each other.

[Nick Casario]

Yep.

[Seth Payne]

There's a lot of Will Anderson sacks that were because Danil flushed the pocket and vice versa Absolutely.

[Sean Pendergast]

All right, we'll get to headlines. Astros win last night. We'll talk about that. We've got training camp news. Got a little news around the NFL as well that we can get to lot to get to here as Seth and I are live here at Texans training camp for day two. So stay there. Headlines are coming up.

[Seth Payne]

Payne and Pendergast with today's headlines.

[Sean Pendergast]

All right, let's get to headlines. Payne and Pendergast with you here on a, on a Thursday, day two of Texans training camp. We'll get to the Texans in just a little bit. We've only touched on the Astros one time today, but I think it's worth touching on certainly here at the top of headlines, the Astros have climbed all the way back to.500, Seth. They are 55 and 55 on the season.

[Seth Payne]

I brought this up with one game back of the Rangers in the division.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep. One game back of the Rangers could be a half game back when, when we go to bed tonight because the Rangers do play tonight and then they've got a three game series the Astros do with the Rangers at home this weekend. Biggest series of the year easily coming up this week at Dyken Park. For a little perspective on exactly where the Astros are as an organization compared to the heyday of the Astros, they are 55 and 55. I still think that the 2019 Astros are the best team. The best Astros team.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. You're not alone in that.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, they're the best.

[Seth Payne]

Well, that was, I mean, you had two Cy Young finalists. You had one of the, you had, you had historical, historically great things both on the offensive and defensive side.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. But here's why I'm bringing them up. In order to, in order to finish with the same record as that team in the regular season, the Astros would need to win out.

[Seth Payne]

Well, they're on pace. They need to win every game.

[Sean Pendergast]

The rest of this, they'd need to win the last 52 games of the season. But that's, that's a match that team.

[Seth Payne]

That's perfect, though, because that's also a reminder that, hey, who did that historically great regular season baseball team lose to in the World series that year, 93

[Sean Pendergast]

win, nationals team, which was a bad team for the first half of the season.

[Seth Payne]

That right?

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep.

[Seth Payne]

And it was and completely is every. We don't need to relive that agony.

[Sean Pendergast]

No.

[Seth Payne]

But I think there's a lot to be said about just exactly what the Astros are right now, given all of those injuries early on. They've They've righted the ship to an extreme degree. And I. Look, I. Because it's more of a storybook way to put it, I. I'll latch right onto it. Is that I think part of this, guys like Jeremy Pena, you know, getting up and making a speech and telling guys they need to be more urgent after they got swept coming out of the bye week, that, that kind of. That core DNA of this team, it's. We've been watching it in these last couple years and wondering like, who the hell are these guys? These guys just don't resemble. To speak nothing of the performance on the field, just the way they operate and like, where is the. Where's the drive and the passion and the urgency? I loved. I loved that Pena has become one of those guys as a relatively young player. I do too.

[Sean Pendergast]

I do, too. I just hope he's here for longer than just next season.

[Seth Payne]

I don't give a damn about next season.

[Demico Ryans]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, there may not be one good news. There might not be a season next year. Did you see. I'm going to hit it here just because I don't know when we're going to hit the Astros again. Did you see Jeff Passon's trade deadline article yesterday? And what he's proposing might be in the works for the Astros?

[Nick Casario]

No.

[Sean Pendergast]

George Springer.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, that's right. No, I did see that.

[Demico Ryans]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

That. That's okay.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's in the last year of his deal.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Toronto is in dump mode right now. They are. They are going to be all. All signs point to them being a seller.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

And. And, and we know Jim Crane's not. He's got some nostalgia.

[Seth Payne]

He'll do the. He'll pull the sentimental look if you're a. If you're a Verlander, if you're a Correa, I would imagine if you're a Springer. There's a little something.

[Sean Pendergast]

Jim Crane is not afraid to go to a Doobie Brothers concert or a Journey concert. He loves him some nostalgia.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. But he's also wondering why his kids aren't into the Doobie Brothers. Like, his kids are like, I don't know. Dad, Dad, I was hoping to live on campus next year at college. Like. No, no. We gotta go see the Doobie Brothers with this money.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep.

[Seth Payne]

We gotta. We got a box. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Probably wouldn't have to pay very much. I mean, it only be for two months out of the year and Toronto probably pick up some of the freight.

[Demico Ryans]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

No, and that, that could. And you don't have to worry about his age or his injury history. I mean, you do worry about his injury history, but if you're just rolling the dice on somebody that, you know, when it comes to some of those. Some of those things that, you know, one of my favorite Jeff Luno quotes was, you know, just because who's obviously very analytically minded was that there are things that you just can't measure analytically. And he said, just because you can't measure something doesn't mean that it's not real. So when it comes to things like team chemistry or leadership or all those, it's a lot harder to. It's a lot harder to attach numbers and formulas to those things. And George Springer just feels right. He was just. And I know you don't come. You don't expect him to come back and be the peak version of himself, but when you're looking for bats in the outfield, my goodness.

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, the issue would be one, he's. He's older, obviously. And the injury, the injury always hangs. The injury cloud always hangs over him, as you pointed out. But he's only. He's only played like seven games in the outfield this year.

[Seth Payne]

He's been there.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's been their full time dh. So Jordan, that seat's taken. Maybe Jordan and him do some sort of platoon in left field. You know, Dyken's got a pretty easy left field to play for good outfielders.

[Seth Payne]

I got depressed yesterday when I realized that George Springer is 36 years old.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes, he's old.

[Seth Payne]

That was because I kind of knee jerk yesterday said something like, well, you know, age and injuries. But I wasn't really thinking of it as an old guy necessarily. But he's old.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's old. Yeah. So.

[Seth Payne]

Well, I always think of him as being much younger than Altuve just because Altuve was already on the, you know, was already an all star player and everything.

[Demico Ryans]

George.

[Sean Pendergast]

George made the mistake of going to college.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

All right, so that's what's going on with the Ash.

[Seth Payne]

Well, he made the mistake of going to college and then also just being stuck in the M. In the minor leagues on a team that was on

[Sean Pendergast]

a team that was messing with people's service time. Service time at that. At that point in their. In their evolution. So, yeah, Astros win last night, off tonight, Rangers in town this weekend. This is an exciting baseball weekend coming up.

[Seth Payne]

And Wisneski, last night would be the promising thing where it didn't look so hot. But he reined it in, figured it out, got it together.

[Nick Casario]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

And there have been good Things going on on the pitching front. If you just ignore some of the incredibly disastrous things that have also been going on.

[Sean Pendergast]

Gave up three in the first inning, but ended up hanging in for five and two thirds and ended up only giving up those three runs, as you pointed out. So, so, so that's good news. Texans yesterday at training camp. The, the big, I guess the big story coming out of training camp yesterday is that CJ Stroud contract talks may still have a pulse here. Nick Casario saying that the two sides have had productive conversations over the course of the offseason. Here, here was CJ Stroud when he was asked about it yesterday.

[Demico Ryans]

I think, you know, everything has been great. You know, I'm focused on ball, trying to do what, trying to just hold my, my bargain down on just the football side and do what I can, you know, and what I should be doing as a, as a quarterback of this team. So I'm letting them handle it and seems like everything is going great.

[Sean Pendergast]

Maybe hold my bargain down as a saying that's just popped up and you and I are a little too old.

[Seth Payne]

Hold my bargain down.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Check Urban Dictionary for me and see if there's anything about holding a bargain down on there. But it does sound like from both sides, both CJ Stroud and Nick Casario, that there is smoke going on right now. There is at least contact between the two sides. We don't know which one is more dug in than the other on what the number is. We don't even know what the number is. We know what the number is for the market out there right now. And it would seem, I would guess that if the Texans aren't talking about anything in that 55 million dollar range, then the side that's probably pretty dug in is the. Is, is the CJ Stroud, David Muller

[Seth Payne]

got a side they might have. That in their head is 65 million. And like theoretically at least be at

[Sean Pendergast]

55 and put CJ with all these other guys.

[Seth Payne]

That's true.

[Demico Ryans]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

The Texans might be a little bit. Now the one thing about the Texans too is that they, they like going shorter term deals with lots of guaranteed money. And you just never know because when it comes to players negotiating with teams, there's like seven different ways a player can feel like he's been adequately taken care of. Like some guys care about the average, some guys care about the total guarantee, some guys care about just the top line number. And we just have zero clue exactly how all that's going.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep. All right, so there you go. Those are Your, those are your headlines. A quick reminder that August 13th, big day, sports radio 610, if you haven't heard the news, is going to be 95. 7 the Fan at about 8 o' clock, August 13th. That's when the changeover, the countdown. It's going to be a huge day here at the station. When we become 957 the Fan, still simulcast on Sports Radio 610. It'll be 610 the Fan. So make a note of that circle. August 13th, biggest day in the history of the station.

[Seth Payne]

Frequency modulation.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's exactly right. Two weeks from today. We are on the frequency modulation as opposed to the. What is the ac.

[Seth Payne]

Amplitude.

[Sean Pendergast]

Amplitude. Yeah. Let's ask the engineer.

[Seth Payne]

Why are you shaking your head at amplification? It's amplitude. He said amplification. You shook your head. Yeah, I said amplitude.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. I was wrong.

[Seth Payne]

No, I mean, don't ask me, do it. Don't ask me any further questions about that.

[Sean Pendergast]

All right.

[Seth Payne]

I was the one that was wrong.

[Sean Pendergast]

All right. All right. So we'll, that's, that's big, exciting news for the station two weeks from today. All right, Coming up next, if you're a Texan fan, that's not able to be out here at training camp and none of you can really be out here until Saturday this week, but you're very curious about what's going on, not just with C.J. stroud. What's the offense look like? What do these position groups look like? What's the vibe around the team? Seth has his. Seth is emptying his notebook in this next segment. So you're going to get everything that went on. We've got audio to go with it as well.

[Seth Payne]

We'll do that.

[Sean Pendergast]

All your business out there, Seth, we're just talking about.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, yeah, I'll put it out there. I said they're banking on a lot of us to die. We're talking about your pension, my pension, the gap between when you start collecting, talking about the government, when you start, when you start collecting at 55 versus when you collect at 65. There's a huge, that's normal in pension plans and everything. But it is always, I do like thinking about, you know, my, my fellow former NFL players. It's a small group of us and I kind of look around the room. We're like, yeah, they're banking on some of these guys to be dead. And that's why, that's why when I, I, when I wait until 65, I'm cleaning up.

[Sean Pendergast]

Stick it to him.

[Seth Payne]

Stick it to the thanks, fellas. Thanks in advance for your contributions to my pension.

[Sean Pendergast]

Thanks for eating all that fried food.

[Seth Payne]

As I. As I finish my third kolache in the morning, all these suckers says, got

[Sean Pendergast]

a half empty Shipley's box in front of him.

[Seth Payne]

I'll be eating 12 kolaches a day when I turn 65.

[Sean Pendergast]

The irony of Seth having pink frosting in his beard as he says, I waited till 65 to get my pension.

[Seth Payne]

Can't be believe the NFL's so dumb. They're gonna pay all this money. All I gotta do is make it to 65.

[Sean Pendergast]

Stupid idiots. You can tell by the financial.

[Seth Payne]

Drink all the whiskey I want.

[Sean Pendergast]

You can tell by the financial model they don't know what they're doing.

[Seth Payne]

Hold on. I'm gonna finish this bottle of whiskey and drive to the liquor store and get me another one. I got my pension money coming.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's my favorite part of training camp when we get Texans employees, like coaches like James Lifford just walked by. By. They're walking by here and like, these idiots over. They just looking over like people are paying them to do this. What the hell? All right, Pain and Pender gas with you. All right, so first practice at training camp yesterday, you had the notebook out. That's how you know it's a big deal. If Seth's got the notebook out, it's a big deal.

[Seth Payne]

College ruled.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's right.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, no, this is scholastic. I'm still working on my cursive Z. Shut up.

[Sean Pendergast]

Sounds about right. So. So, so, biggest takeaways for you from training camp. Let's do these here. Let's get the. Let's plug the people in as to what Seth C. Pain, former NFL player, saw you.

[Seth Payne]

This was. This was something that we already noted during OTAs and minicamp, but, man, when it comes to the offensive line and the defensive line, like, there is, as they've talked about, you know, really focusing on the physicality on the offensive side of the ball. And you drafted Kaden McDonald defensively. The first guys I saw walking out were Keelan Rutledge and Braden Smith walking side by side. And, man, those dudes are put together,

[Sean Pendergast]

man, they look like a WWE tag team because they both have.

[Seth Payne]

They got these red beards. They look like they're going to fight for House McNair. Like they're just about to mount their heavy horses. It was good. It was like, off of something about, like an HBO series or something. And then you look over and I saw, like, Kaden McDonald and Naquan Jones Were working out before practice out in the corner. And those are two massive dudes. Naquan, remember, he was brought in late in the year, last year, after all of those injuries, and I thought he did some good stuff, But I think there's just definitely more of a focus on physicality. But they've. They've made moves. And the guys they've brought in are. They're built like. They're built like guys that. You know what they are. When you watch a movie about football and you're like, oh, they actually did a good job with casting the O line.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's what this looks like.

[Seth Payne]

Instead of just these big, fat, sloppy. Some of these football movies, it's like, oh, they just. They took the first few 400 pounders.

[Sean Pendergast]

They watched the Replacements when we were on vacation. That's the worst cast football movie of all time. So that this is good casting by Nick Kasario and d'.

[Demico Ryans]

Amico.

[Seth Payne]

Ryan, the other one, and Cody stutes agreed with me on this. So I feel. I feel like it's an accurate assessment. I thought Trent Brown looked pretty good. I thought he looked. I wanted to say he looked leaner, but he was also kind of all monochromatic. He was wearing, like, long sleeves, and I think he might have the socks pulled up. But I thought that for a guy that last year. Look, he's a big dude, and it's not like he's ever gonna win any physique competitions or anything, but he was coming off that torn patellar tendon last year, and I think for some of the good things he did last year, he's getting up there in years. He's a massive human being. And he does look. He looked like his body composition was a little bit. I know he's so big to begin with, but he looks good. So in terms of just, okay, these guys, you know, how do they look on the lot? I thought they looked pretty damn good.

[Sean Pendergast]

You had to handicap the right tackle because you just mentioned both these guys, which is why I'm asking Braden Smith and Trent Brown, same way I handicapped earlier, will CJ Stroud get a contract or not? If you were making odds on this thing, right, or just percentage chance of which guy's gonna be the week one starter, how would you do it? One practice in. We're watching right tackle. What's your assessment?

[Seth Payne]

Well, all right. I mean, like, I'm not gonna use anything from practice as the indication of what. But if I had to handicap it right now, it's that it's going to be A really tough decision, and it might just go down to that. They really like having Trent Brown as a swing tackle and a guy that has had a lot of injuries in his career. You know, it's like he's only had a few seasons where he stayed healthy the entire year. Braden Smith's got a bunch of injuries in the last few years, though, too, that I would still give a slight edge to Braden Smith. And really, we just got to watch when the pads come out, exactly how these guys. The great thing about those guys is that they're going to be getting a lot of reps versus Will Anderson and Daniel Hunter. Yes. And I think. But I think it is more of a genuine competition than it felt like at the. At the beginning of free agency. Sometimes just because. Because a guy is one of the first guys signed to a respectable contract, you kind of elevate a guy up in importance in your mind. And then you remember, like, okay, this is. You know, the Browns are playing paying Titus Howard a lot more money than the Texans are playing paying Braden Smith. And there's. And Trent Brown did. They didn't lose a game when Trent Brown was starting last year. Like, he did some good things for them. So I think it's going to be a real competition.

[Sean Pendergast]

All right, so how about the offense as a whole? See, we saw a lot bigger bodies out there. Seth is emptying his notebook.

[Seth Payne]

I thought they looked more organized. They looked cohesive and buzzword precise.

[Ad Voice]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

We got to ask about this. What did they call it? The precision period.

[Seth Payne]

There's a precision period.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

They didn't. If I. I don't recall seeing a pre. Period during training camp last year. Landry. Landry says that they were doing it during the season, so somewhere along the way. But we've heard Kasario's. You use the word precision or precise.

[Sean Pendergast]

He was using it almost like they used to use smart, tough, dependable.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. And then d' Amico in the video that they. They showed a video on the Texan social media of him giving a speech to the team, and he's talking about the Artemis 2 mission. Yeah. And talking about the precision of how everybody has to be dialed in 100% before you. Before you can go. And that was the theme of his speech. And I think on the offensive side of the ball especially, that's. That's the emphasis. And I thought they looked precise. The biggest thing that I was encouraged by was. All right. And I don't, you know, they. They prefer that we not describe a whole lot of stuff that's like going on strategically. But like any, like every team in the NFL, they're working on their pre snap motion right now. And I thought for the things that they were doing on day one of practice and how they were handling the motion, I thought it looked really good.

[Sean Pendergast]

Pretty crisp.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, yeah, it looks really crisp. And when they're going against the defense where there's going to have to be checks and adjustments, there weren't any stoppages in practice or anything. So it's one day. But a lot of times on day one, that's when all of a sudden you got to start a period over because the offense is screwing stuff up or you just, you can't get the ball snapped during a period because. Because you've just got guys lined up improperly. That part of it. For what they were looking to do yesterday, they looked precise.

[Sean Pendergast]

Here was Nick Casario, Texans general manager on he's asked about Nick Cayley and where the offense. Nick Haley, the OC and where the offense needs to improve.

[Nick Casario]

Yeah, did a lot of good things offensively. Kind of got off to a slow start as a team. You know, I think kind of midway, probably from about midpoint of the season to the end, you know, we were one of the better offenses in the league. You know, we played more consistent. So, you know, we'll see. I mean, just go out there and you know, get. Put a foundation in place here, you know, systems in place, kind of make a couple tweaks and adjustments here. But Nick's a really good coach. He's got a good attitude, got good energy, has a lot of respect to the players. So I mean, go out there and training camp, it's about the players, but it's about the coaches as well. So getting back into your routine, calling plays, reacting to the situation. We have a lot of unscripted periods where d' Ameco will have have the coordinators just call plays. So you just try to prepare. Then you go back, hey, you know what, this worked. All right, maybe go back, make a tweak here. I'd say the core foundation of what we're going to do offensively will probably be installed within the first two weeks. And it really, it's about what the players do well. So what do the players do well. And then we're going to build the game plan and the offense accordingly. So, you know, excited about the opportunity Nick has in front of him, excited about the opportunity, you know, for the whole coaching staff.

[Seth Payne]

I didn't. That's the first time I've heard anybody say that the Texans had one of the better offenses in the league in the second half of the season last year.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, maybe they have some stats that back that up.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, maybe in terms of just like maybe maintaining control and possession of the. I mean, in terms of just actual scoring production, they didn't get much above 20 other than against the Cardinals and then the last game of the season against the Colts. So I was. That caught me by surprise. And that'd be, you know what, we can ask him about that next week when we have him on.

[Demico Ryans]

Yep.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, but yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. Tuesday next week, Nick Casseria will join us.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, like realistically, the, the biggest thing that they need to improve that would make the biggest impact is just can they run the ball in short yardage in red zone situations? And then can they run the ball more consistently? You know, just getting positive yards, even in chunks of 4 yards, not huge now, you don't have to have home run hits all the time in the run game, but they've just got to run it more consistently. That that's the one thing that if you really isolated and honed in on from last year, the things would have been a whole lot different. And that's what the Texans have focused on in the offseason. That's exactly what they've addressed.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's so obvious the moves they've made. They're not, they're not trying to be at all secretive about what they're doing. They signed a big blocking tight end. They drafted a big tight end in the second round. They traded for David Montgomery, who's one of the best short yardage guys and whose running style is bull in a china shop like they are. And then all the things on the offensive line that they're doing, which are big mauler, brawler, physical dudes.

[Seth Payne]

The running backs themselves, you know, you know, my cautionary tale about running backs is always, man, they always look incredible in non padded practices because they're just little powerhouses. They're muscular, they're lean, they're fast, they're all those things. And that's exactly what it looked like yesterday. I thought that Jawar Jordan remains after day one, one of my most intriguing players in camp. He had one nice run on his own run where he cut it back and looks like in no pads. It looked like it would have been a nice game, but he made the decision really well. He saw the picture in front of him and he hit the cutback. You know, think in your mind's eye of Arian Foster back in the day when on his own run, he just had a feel for when to cut it back back. His big run he had last year was he cut it back against the grain. It was a little further downfield. It wasn't the classic, you know, zone run. But, like, I think his size is always going to be an issue. But in using him in spells and as a guy that can be your third running back, I'm still very intrigued by him.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, I am too.

[Seth Payne]

He looked like he was working his butt off in special teams drills too.

[Sean Pendergast]

George. Or. Well, I mean, look, with Jalen Noel out right now, there's. There, there are snaps to be had as a kick return Turner.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

You know what I mean? Yeah.

[Nick Casario]

I know you.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

You gotta look on your face like he's a wide receiver, Sean.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. No, no, no. But, you know, in my mind I was thinking like, I screwed up. Is he actually a wide receiver?

[Sean Pendergast]

No, no, not at all.

[Seth Payne]

But it's Jordan.

[Sean Pendergast]

But you are Jordan's return kicks before.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. Well, the, the drills that I was talking about was it looked like, like a punt team type stuff.

[Demico Ryans]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. So, I mean, he was working in whatever they asked him to do.

[Sean Pendergast]

Here was d' Amico Ryan's yesterday on that running back room from the running back group.

[Demico Ryans]

I'm excited to see the guys, just how fast they're playing. I see Woody. He looks faster. He's making more decisive decisions like cuts. Jawar is looking good. Of course. Montgomery has done a really good job, so, so really good room of running backs. And I'm just excited to see them continue to improve on those fine details, like, can we improve in our reads, can we improve in our pass protection? Can we improve in the screen game as well? So I'm just excited to see the growth of that group throughout camp.

[Seth Payne]

That's, you know, when he's talking about their need to be more precise. Did he use the word precise again in their. In their reads and all that? It always annoys me when I see people say sometimes that, like, well, you know, the running backs coach, you know, on an NFL team, they don't do a whole lot because you just give the ball to guy and run. I'm like, okay, maybe some coaches feel that way. But there's, there's a lot of coaching that goes into coaching a running back if you want them operating. Probably not to mention just in pass protection.

[Nick Casario]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

You don't want to hit your quarterback.

[Seth Payne]

I do. Like, I get offended on behalf of Danny Barrett and every other running backs coach, when people act like, oh, like running backs coach, what do you do? Can't teach that. Like, I know there's a lot that goes into it, and he's a good one. And I think that that's where David Montgomery specifically can make a big difference. Just like, no matter where he is in terms of, you know, his peak production or athleticism or anything, he's 29 years old.

[Demico Ryans]

That's.

[Seth Payne]

Or he's going to be 29. That's. That's really old for a running back. Like, I. I went back and thought about, man, Marcus Allen in the final year of his career was in 1997. So I was a rookie and we're playing the Chiefs and Marcus Allen is their short yardage back. That's it.

[Demico Ryans]

He's not.

[Seth Payne]

He's not Marcus Allen. From the highlight reels or anything, I

[Sean Pendergast]

had him in fantasy that year. Yeah, he had like 200 yards rushing, but he had like 14 touchdowns.

[Seth Payne]

I tell you this, he was so. He wasn't at his peak anymore, but he hit the hole so freaking hard. And he made his decision so quickly that it felt like. Because I was a rookie, too, and I wasn't ready for it. Like, there were a couple plays down in short yardage where I felt like I had a good rep going and I went to throw my offensive lineman and Marcus Allen was already past me. Like, the whole rhythm of it was disrupted. But like, so. So the vision, the strength, all of those things are still there. And as I was saying earlier, the short yardage running game alone and the running game down in the red zone could really have an outsized impact on how effective this offense is. And I think David Montgomery will still be good, really, really good at that stuff, no matter what the rest of his production. Looks like.

[Sean Pendergast]

We're spending a lot of time on the offensive side of the ball because that's where I think a lot of the question marks are with this team. I want to hear what you have to say about the tight end room, but before we do that, here's Demiko Ryan's on the. The newly added depth in the tight end room.

[Demico Ryans]

I expect our tight ends to play much better this year, starting with our coach, James Farris. Passionate coach, guy who's played the game for 10 years. He brings that energy, brings that passion, knowing what it's like as a player. Right. And he's done a great job pouring into those guys. Kaylee's working with the tight ends as well. And the group. We have a really deep group. We have, you know, six, seven guys there who can go play for us. So that's the exciting part about it. All different guys. You talk about passing game, blocking game. We got a plethora of guys who should allow us to do some cool things when it comes to 12, 13 personnel. So I'm excited to see our usage and how guys, you know, just thrive in camp, see what they do well, and see how we can use them to our advantage in our offense.

[Sean Pendergast]

That was my favorite part. The cool things they're gonna get to do.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

In 12 and 13 personnel, it's like getting tricky with a hammer.

[Demico Ryans]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

So 12 personnel.

[Sean Pendergast]

Cool things you can do with this hammer.

[Seth Payne]

So 12 personnel is two tight ends. 13 personnel is three tight ends. And even in saying that and, you know, and using 13 personnel, that's kind of like. Like, people. People know the teams that are planning on using a lot of 13 personnel because just about half the league drafted a tight end this year, that you just need more bottom bodies in more numbers. I thought the. With Foster Moreau, the most encouraging thing I saw from him yesterday was also the dumbest thing he did, which was he tackled Kamari Lasseter after Kamari Lasseter got an interception. Yeah, don't do that.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's one of our best players last year.

[Seth Payne]

I love seeing it. I like seeing that kind of, you know, it's kind of like when a kid. Like when a kid who's been bullied actually fights back. You're like, that's how I feel about the offense.

[Sean Pendergast]

Those are my favorite videos.

[Seth Payne]

They've been bullied a lot, but now they've got the. Now they got Foster Moreau who comes in. It's like that Lucas movie from back in the day.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, yeah.

[Seth Payne]

You know, the offense has got this. This big dude that's going to stick up for him now in the form of Foster Moreau. Yeah, Foster Moreau plays like a guy that's, like, kind of. That could be kind of a fancy laugh, you know, like, I'm Foster Moreau. Oh, totally, totally. Send back. Send back this trust.

[Sean Pendergast]

Just picturing, like, picturing Blake Fisher in a letterman's jacket. He's eight sizes too big for him.

[Seth Payne]

Like, it's a little bit like the Boy Named Sue. He's like, foster Moreau has to be nasty because he's got the name Foster Moreau. So you think he's just some punk? No, like, no, no.

[Sean Pendergast]

You got to be. You got to be double tough if you have Foster Moreau.

[Seth Payne]

So he tackled Kamari Lasseter. It was a nice form tackle when everything. It wasn't like he wasn't like. He just wasn't like he blindsided him or anything.

[Sean Pendergast]

No, no, he just dragged him to the ground.

[Nick Casario]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Still not supposed to do it, but it wasn't bad. What about the other guys? What about the guys who are. The two guys who I think are under the most pressure in that group are Kate Stover and Brevin Jordan.

[Seth Payne]

All right. Kate Stover and Brevin Jordan. Nothing notable to tell you other than I was annoyed that Cade Stover changed his number because the first couple times I saw Foster. The first time. A couple times I keep doing this. It's been. It's been multiple times so far this spring. I've seen. I've seen Foster Moreau wearing 87 and thought it was Kate Stover. And I've been. I've been impressed by Kate Stover. Like, Ah, crap, that's. Well, I think nothing notable. I didn't see anything notable out of those two guys that we don't already know. Marlon Klein, it's been. He was working in some blocking drills next to Foster. Moreover, and you can see the potential for physicality in the running game and in the blocking game with Marlon Klein. He almost had a beautiful catch at the end of practice, the last play, I think.

[Ad Voice]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Reeled it in, had to dive for it, but hit the ground hard and coughed it up.

[Demico Ryans]

Yep.

[Seth Payne]

Look at this. Ain't no German soccer pitch. Okay. This ground is hardened for football. Okay, son. All right. You gotta hold onto that ball. But it was almost.

[Demico Ryans]

Almost.

[Seth Payne]

Almost a really nice guy.

[Sean Pendergast]

If he made.

[Seth Payne]

No, we love in offensive football a lot of almost.

[Sean Pendergast]

If he made that catch, it would have been the second biggest thing we're Talking about behind CJ's contract.

[Seth Payne]

Well, you know what? It would have been on the social media, like, highlight from the team.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. And. And we would have winning. You and I would have been getting texts and tweets from people like, yo, yeah, Marlon Klein.

[Seth Payne]

But we video.

[Sean Pendergast]

I saw.

[Seth Payne]

We see the. But you can definitely see the upside there in terms of just. Yes, he has receiving ability, but they also really, really, really want guys that are. Can be physical, both in the run game and pass protection.

[Sean Pendergast]

Your notes are all on the offensive side of the ball, which I think makes sense because that's where people have the most questions.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Was there anything defensive?

[Seth Payne]

No, I. Oh, you don't have my full notes? I didn't put my defensive notes in there.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, okay.

[Seth Payne]

You know, the one thing was that the linebacker. The linebacker. It's hard to talk about on radio because. Because I saw Jamal Hill walking out and I was like, oh, yeah, Jamal Hill. We haven't talked about him in a while, but he's a big guy. He's in his third year. They drafted two linebackers this year. This is a big year for Jamal Hill to take another the proverbial next step. But there's just a lot of guys in competition for that third linebacker spot. And at this point, I couldn't tell you exactly who the leader in the clubhouse is. We talk a lot about Marte Mapu and Wade Wood as, but there's Jamal Hill, there's Aiden Fisherman, there's Casey Osai was out there. He's a big guy.

[Sean Pendergast]

So that'll be Jake Hanson still hanging around.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of guys to, you know, just kind of monitor that as the preseason rolls along. But the only, like, my biggest takeaway about the defense was okay, I saw nothing out here. That has me less confident about the Texans defense being elite this year. Right, right. There were, you know, knock on wood. There were no injuries or anything, but it was all good.

[Sean Pendergast]

I'm rooting for Wood as in that battle for the third linebacker spot just because one, he's intriguing. Just the, the physical traits are intriguing to me that he was a safety in college who, you know, put some beef on, became a linebacker. He's got good athleticism. He's going to be on special teams for this team for sure. But the fact if you get a fourth round rookie that all of a sudden is in the mix in your rotation as a linebacker. I mean, Henry Towa Toa, he hasn't been a great player for the Texans, but he's been a useful piece and they got him in the fifth round a few years ago. You get guys on day three that are in the rotation for you and you're laughing.

[Seth Payne]

The only, the only notable thing when I spent time watching the defense yesterday was just, I appreciated. Well, there was the team, the offense was working on the center field. I was watching the defensive walkthrough and just, you know, watching Reed Blankenship fit in and communicate and those guys working through all of their stuff, it's fun to watch. Like they're, they're true professionals. And as far as like Reed Blankenship. Yeah. I haven't seen any hints at all or anything that there's going to be confusion or he's not going to be a fit. It just, it felt like there were five Fingers in a glove.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep. All right, so Will Anderson met with the. Met with the media yesterday. And as is the rule on this show, if Will Anderson speaks, there will be at least two clips played on this show because we Love Will Anderson Jr. So, David, if you're listening, we're going to skip down to the Will Anderson audio here.

[Seth Payne]

A motivational speaker.

[Sean Pendergast]

He is. He's excellent. And he's. That's what he's working on, too. Kind of is his leadership.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

You know, getting up in front of the team.

[Seth Payne]

And I thought you meant his actual, like, motivational speaker presentation.

[Sean Pendergast]

He may very well be working on that, too. I have no idea.

[Seth Payne]

He could totally do it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, absolutely. 100%.

[Seth Payne]

He's the one guy that I can't listen to at 2x speed when I'm trying to hurry through, listening through cuts because he talks so fast.

[Sean Pendergast]

He talks so fast.

[Seth Payne]

Energy.

[Sean Pendergast]

But he's also. He's also not a guy you feel like he got to get through the audio with either. You know, I want to. I want to savor this and listen to this guy at one time speed. This is Will Anderson talking yesterday on this team, going places that they've never been before.

[Demico Ryans]

Yeah, most definitely. Coach. Talk about putting a bull on the ring. That's something that we're striving for, something that's never been done in the city. City that brings something special back to this city. And I think everybody's aware of that. I was just talking about telling the guys yesterday the seriousness of what we're trying to accomplish here, man, like, be a part of it. Like, you're here for a reason. And I think the expectation is like, nobody outside of this building is going to have a higher expectation than what we have in this building. But I think we did a really great job of laying the foundation of who we want to be as a team, what we want to accomplish as a team. And swarm is our foundation. So, like I say all the time, it's like when everything goes wrong or we're not doing this, that we have a foundation to lean back on. And I think that's what we've been able to be so successful. You know, my. My four years of being here because d' Ameco has did a really good job of laying the foundation down.

[Sean Pendergast]

God, you're right. There's no chance listening to him.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. It's funny, you know, I always. I played for coaches that were kind of old school, you know, Dom Capers and Tom Coffin and not talking about, you know, the super bowl, in the media and all of that. We keep all this stuff in house and you don't have to make bold proclamations. Coughlin, especially Capers, we were never really in a position where, you know, people were asking a whole lot about the Super Bowl.

[Nick Casario]

Yeah,

[Seth Payne]

not when he was in Houston, obviously.

[Demico Ryans]

Right.

[Seth Payne]

When he was in Carolina. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

But with Coughlin, Coughlin, when we would be asked, you know, we were in position to win Super Bowls and whatnot, you know, he was very strict about that. And you're not doing all this. I feel like d' Amico doesn't. I don't think he has like a heavy handed policy about how guys speak to the media. And it's interesting to me because when asked questions about the super bowl and stuff like that, you know, some guys will just kind of, you know, keep things to themselves. Other guys will talk about it pretty casually. But I like that d', Ameco, d' Amico and Nick have done a good job of getting a certain type of player to where they don't have to have a lot of conversations or policies about what you can and can't say. Because I think for the most part, their, their key guys are cut from the same cloth.

[Nick Casario]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

You know, and it's not like, it's not like Will and talking about the super bowl or going to the Super Bowl. It's not like he's getting up there and saying like, we're gonna put the, we're gonna put the league on blast.

[Sean Pendergast]

And, you know, and if you do, of all the guys, do you have to worry about Will Anderson, like kind of taking a day off?

[Seth Payne]

Right, right, right. Yeah. Well, I got, you know, I told you when d' Amico was a defensive coordinator in San Francisco, I went back through after the Texans had hired him. I went back and watched all of his press conferences and one of my favorite answers he had given was when somebody asked him, how do you get these guys to practice so hard? And he said, we don't really have to talk about it a lot. You know, we've got the kind of guys that, you know, know what the standard is and they respond to it. So if we talk about it, it's like every now and then maybe somebody has to. Has to be told this isn't the way we do it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Some of them even like practicing, if you believe it. Here's another one from. From Will Anderson on leadership and specifically talks about Kaden McDonald's year four.

[Seth Payne]

Man.

[Demico Ryans]

Just, I guess just to continue to just wreck having all phases of the game. But I think one thing that I really want to step up on, and it's something I wrote down on my goal sheet, is just, just becoming a better leader, you know, better chance of just connecting with the guys and really, you know, being more vocal and really, you know, being hands on with the guys. You know what I'm saying? Like, really like taking the young guys under my wing and Kaden has been a great addition to our room because it's given me that, that time to really like, like have a rookie. Like I've had a rookie. But like he's, he's kind of different, you know what I'm saying? He's a high draft round pick. I mean, he's a high draft pick and he, they come, they expect him to come in and play. So it's my due diligence to help him out and help him reach every goal that he wants and show him the way. But he have, he has worlding. I mean, Sheldon, he has D Hunt, so he has a whole bunch of guys to help him. But I think that's just one area that I want to evolve in is just being a really great leader.

[Sean Pendergast]

This is, this is where I want to say to Will when he's like, it's my job to help him achieve all of his goals. This is where I want to go. You realize that he stated one of his goals, goals is to be first team all pros.

[Seth Payne]

Well, I think.

[Sean Pendergast]

What do you think the chances are of you helping get there?

[Seth Payne]

You know what, Honestly though, because some of the other things that Will talked about yesterday, you know, when he was talking about his goals, his goals are all process oriented and that you don't worry about the outside honors. And that was, you know, we had. When Kaden McDonald got up and just said, you know, all rookie, first team, all pro. It was one of those moments where I'm like, all right. I don't, I don't think he quite understands. It's kind of like saying, I like, it's no matter how good you are as a rookie to make defensive first team all pro. It's. Especially as an interior run stuff in

[Sean Pendergast]

the league at his position.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. So like he just, you know, he just doesn't know what he doesn't know. But the, the real lesson is that, man, you got to be real careful when your goals are outside acknowledgment because that's not always the best indicator of how well you've done done. Like if you, like, honestly, if we wanted to sit down and make A plan for how to be first team all pro. And that was what you were going to attack. Half of your goals are going to be based on the PR side of things. You know, be sure you're reaching out to the nugget hussies and everything. So like that's, that's not what your goals should be. Your goals should be about the things you can control. And that probably is the kind of stuff that that Will has talked about with Kaden McDonald's, you know, and then that's that one of the other things that Will said was that he's, you know, he wants to be sure that he's not just a leader in the D line room, but that when it's the entire team or what's the entire defense, that he's speaking up in those moments too.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep. All right, Payne and Pendergast with you here on a Thursday, day two of Texans training camp. We talked a little bit about the Kyle Shanahan situation yesterday. The car accident that took 11 days to report that it even happened. And then it took a few days later for Kyle Shanahan to meet with the media and say, I guess disclose all the misreporting there was.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

On, on, on his car accident. I don't know if you saw this. Hey, Byron and David, we're gonna skip down to Adam Peters, the GM of the Commanders, some of the fallout from the Kyle Shanahan car accident in which Kyle Shanahan admittedly was at fault in that he claims that he dropped his phone in between the seats seat of his of his car and he went down to fish for the phone, took his eyes off the road. Next thing he knows he's slamming head on into a vehicle with a 21 year old woman in it who initially had been tagged in the system as being at fault. Kyle Shanahan corrected all that. Brandon Ayuk, man cannot resist. Did you happen to see.

[Seth Payne]

Oh yeah, yeah. I think I sent it to you.

[Sean Pendergast]

Posting on Instagram. You may have. Yeah, you may have have Brandon Aiyuk posting on Instagram just making fun of Kyle Shanahan getting into this accident, which is like, I mean IUK is so far out over his skis and lacking in class right now.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, I was always going to be more of a surprise if he didn't do it.

[Sean Pendergast]

If he didn't do it.

[Seth Payne]

You know, the other people were. The other thing people are wondering is if Brandon Ayuk is going to show up at Commander's training camp just as a fan and be a Complete distraction.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's not out of the realm of possibility.

[Seth Payne]

No. God, no. It's not the only thing. He has to. First he has to be sure there's no warrants for his arrest. Then that's what we know these days. And he had to ask. He asked. He had to ask Instagram if there was a warrant for his arrest in California. It turned out there was.

[Sean Pendergast]

There is, yeah. Still they've got one out for him for vehicular stuff. So Adam Peters, the. The GM of the Washington Commanders, who knows Brandon Aiyuk from his time in San Francisco. Peters was in the front office in San Francisco working for John lynch for several years. Was asked a question. He and Dan Quinn, the other voice you're going to hear in this, this audio, the two of them are doing their press conference, I guess to kickoff training camp a couple of days ago. And credit whichever media member this is, found a way to ask a Brandon Aiyuk question without saying the name Brandon Aiuk. Take a listen.

[Demico Ryans]

Adam, one for you.

[Sean Pendergast]

Just in a general sense, as you're always looking to improve the team when you're evaluating guys to maybe bring in for workouts, whatever, what role, if any, does kind of a player's social media have in that evaluation? Evaluation process? That's a good roundabout question. You are straight badass right there. But no, we, I mean, we look at everything, J.P. i mean, it's a great question, but we do look at everything and you know, we want to make sure it's the right player to be in our locker room, in our bloodstream and in our culture. And you know, we often, you know, we look at that stuff. I mean, it's not always the first thing we look at. Obviously you're looking at the tape and you talk to the teams that the players have been on and how they were in the locker room, the players that have played with them and so on and so forth to make those decisions. But, you know, that's not usually a huge part of it. Usually

[Demico Ryans]

well played.

[Seth Payne]

So I think the big thing there is obviously like Jaden Daniels and Brandon Aiuki know each other in college. Brandon Aiyuka was presenting it almost like it was a fortune foregone conclusion that he was gonna. Or Brandon Iuk was presenting it like it was almost a foregone conclusion that he's gonna reunite with Jaden Daniels. All we know publicly is that Brandon Iuk has now publicly called out Jaden Daniels at least a couple times on social media. Yeah, called basically called him a mama's boy and Then said that he won't answer his phone, all these other things. So, yeah, like the team's gonna talk to Jayden Daniels and players are careful. You know, you don't want to talk smack about people necessarily. But you might say like, well, he's, you know, if I were Jayden Daniels, Nick came to me and asked like, so what's up with Brandon Aiyuk?

[Demico Ryans]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

And he'd be like, yeah, you know. Yeah, we used to be pretty tight. He's, he's an interesting guy. He's an interesting guy.

[Sean Pendergast]

I haven't spent a lot of time around him the last couple years, so I don't really know how he's. How he is now.

[Seth Payne]

Okay, so you're telling us you're not giving us like a full bore endorsement of like, hey, I'm not saying that. But you're not giving it to us, right? I never said I'm not doing that. But I'm also not doing that.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right, right, right.

[Seth Payne]

I think that the problem, this is the problem with Brandon. Even if you're acting crazy on social media, this is the biggest problem for any team that wants to get him is that look, look at what happened in San Francisco where it really seems that he had these. He was disgruntled, he wanted to get traded. He submarine to the trade that they had in place for him and finally they came to a deal. A really, really good deal, a really good contract extension. But he couldn't let it go. Like, he couldn't let those hard feelings go. And ultimately just now, if he still wants to play football, he just doesn't want anything to do with San Francisco because he just. So I'm, if I'm a team and I'm thinking, okay, well maybe I can get this guy at a discount. This is not the guy who's going to be cool with, with that contract. He's going to be immediately. He'll be. The first time he has a big game. He's going to be pissed off that you're only paying him $5 million this year.

[Sean Pendergast]

You know, on this show, the two of us, I tend to be the one. Well, that guy's never playing again. No team's going to sign that guy. You tend to be the guy like Sean, there's 32 teams. Somebody's going to sign Antonio Brown.

[Demico Ryans]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

And sure as hell somebody signed Antonio Brown. Back when you and I had conversations about him like that. What do you think about Brandon iu?

[Seth Payne]

I think there will be a team that tries it if he still wants to play football. I don't know if he wants to play football still because he's acting like the way he's acting. It's like he's not even aware of, like the process that needs to go on for him to get back into playing football.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's also made his money now, too. They've given him 50 million.

[Seth Payne]

Well, but they can claw back some. Them of. There's, there's. The 49ers might be able to demand some of that money back if things keep going this way.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, that's.

[Seth Payne]

So I think that somebody will sign him, but it's going to be on a short leash. And that because he's just that, you know, there's a lot of other guys that I would say, look, George Pickens, George Pickens has done a great job of basically understanding that he's got a certain reputation and that he's done everything he can now to like, I'm going to. He's going to play on the franchise tag. He's not doing a hold in or anything like that. And so far, so good in that regard. I don't know if Brandon Iuk has that in him to suppress the ego. Somebody will sign him. He'll get disgruntled and it'll be one of these like Albert Haynesworth type things with the Patriots where he's there for three weeks.

[Sean Pendergast]

I would have lost a ton of money betting on George Pickens playing on the franchise tag.

[Demico Ryans]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Signing the 10, signing it and going

[Seth Payne]

along and being really.

[Sean Pendergast]

He signed it early, too. You know, it's not like one of those things like camp rolled around. He's like, all right, well, I guess I'll go to camp. He's, you're right. He's been a good sitter. All right, Pain and Pendergast with you. Final segment. Coming up, we got another contract extension yesterday that might be instructive for the Houston Texans. We'll tell you who that was. All right, Pain and Pendergast with you. Final segment. And we'll hand things over to John Harris and Mark Vandermeer, who will take you the next couple hours here on Texans Training camp live. Reggie Attatula, John Lopez will be out here from 10 to 2. They had Aziz Al Shayer on yesterday. Yeah, I apologize. I don't know who they have today. The Aziz interview was outstanding. He spent some time in Jordan in the off season, met with the royal family. It was really interesting. It's a good conversation.

[Seth Payne]

He's going better with him in Jordan than it is with me and Guam. And Guam's in American territory.

[Nick Casario]

It is.

[Seth Payne]

And I'm not allowed there.

[Sean Pendergast]

Nope.

[Seth Payne]

I'm just starting to wonder exactly what the hell's going on, you know.

[Sean Pendergast]

You know what? You did piss off the Guam.

[Seth Payne]

It explains why I never got the ambassadorship to Guam. Right. Because there is no ambassador to Guam. Because it's an American territory.

[Sean Pendergast]

You don't deserve.

[Seth Payne]

I didn't know if there was like a US Guam, like with a Samoa. There's a Samoan American Samoa. I don't know if there was a Guam and then like a. Like a US Guam.

[Sean Pendergast]

Foreign Guam.

[Seth Payne]

There's only one Guam.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay. And they don't need an impact.

[Seth Payne]

No. There's not enough Guam to chunk it up into foreign Guam in American Guam.

[Sean Pendergast]

Not enough to divide up till Guam starts invading other countries and experience at

[Seth Payne]

all as campaign that kind of like did some word play with guac and Guam and everything.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Guacamole. So the. Yesterday was a good productive day. Good productive day. I thought that everything looked sharp offensively. I am. I'm waiting. I'm waiting for the first big deep strike like where The. The. Where C.J. stroud finds Nico wide open because somebody on the defense screwed up. Now some of that that's most likely to come during, you know, when you have the pads on and there's a little bit more of a play action dynamic to it or something.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right.

[Seth Payne]

Because look, I can have it. Look, I'm. Look, it's like. It's like I'm a heavyweight champion fighter if I'm the defense right now. You know, you can sustain a few blows. It's okay. As a fan, I'm not going to freak out if the defense allows a deep strike at some point during training camp. I would just want to see this Texans offense actually do it. Yeah, that'd be because we haven't seen a whole lot of that.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes. That's a great way to put it. Like, would you. Yeah, I'd rather feel I would. This training camp to me is all about coming away feeling better about the offense.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Than it is feeling any kind of way about the defense.

[Seth Payne]

Right, right.

[Sean Pendergast]

We know what the defense is now.

[Seth Payne]

I did get excited about the exact opposite on a play yesterday. The opposite of a deep strike which was a well executed screen. And now. Okay, how like would have been it. Would it have been successful? They're not wearing pads. Who knows? I know the execution of the screen looked a lot different than how a lot of screens have looked by the Texans over the Last few years you had a, you had an armada of offensive linemen set up one yard past the line of scrimmage as the running back caught the ball. And it was just, it was a well executed screen.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep.

[Seth Payne]

That was, it's like one element of the offense last year that they were like, they very much underutilized screens and for certain reasons, but they'd like to be able to. Demico brought that up yesterday. They'd like to be able to do more of it this year.

[Sean Pendergast]

So a contract extension handed out again yesterday and another one by the Browns that I think is instructed for the Houston Texans over the next 12 months or so. I think the expectation if they have the same seasons they had last year, Kamari Lasseter and Calen Bullock, is that they would be on the list of guys that the Texans would want to keep around for a few more years on a second contract. Lassiter in particular. We know Denzel Ward got a contract extension from the Browns a few days ago. That essentially was a new high water mark at the position. 31.1 million a year. It was a two year deal. The Browns yesterday gave Grant Delpit, safety, a new three year extension.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Worth 48 million total, 35 million guaranteed, 16 million a year. Do you think it's. If you had to pick one to keep Kamari Lasseter at 31 million a year or Kalin Bullock at 16 million a year?

[Seth Payne]

I guess I would say just it's tomorrow. Last year because of the position he plays.

[Sean Pendergast]

Even though it'd be double the money.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. And you don't have to, I mean you don't necessarily. You don't have to make that decision. It's potentially they could end up having to make decisions like that. But I don't think, I don't think like next year is not the year where all of a sudden they have to make those really hard decisions. Correct. It's a couple years down the line after you've given out some of these big deals and maybe by that point somebody will have gotten injured or somebody's underperforming. I think the big X factor, when people start to worry about or wring their hands over the math in the future, you got to remember that Daniel Hunter is on basically a pay as you go plan on his contract. And there's going to be a point at some time where probably there's another team out there that is actually more willing to pay Daniel Hunter a good chunk of money at his age and the Texans will be able to part ways with Daniel Hunter. With minimal pain. And that's a big chunk of cash coming off the books because you're paying all of that in a two year window. That it's like there's, there's, there's room for movement if and when they, Daniel Hunter either decides to retire or it's just, it's not worth it because the Texans have a younger guy coming up in the wings.

[Sean Pendergast]

Look, if you're one of those, if you're one of those people that feels like the cap is kind of phony, you can do anything with the cap. I. To a degree. To a degree, there is, there is some truth to that, that the Eagles are kind of proving that, that if you're, if you have an ownership that's willing to shove enough current day cash into voidable years and dummy years and things like that, you can make. In the, in the, in the moment, you can make almost anything happen. The piper does come to come for you.

[Seth Payne]

There is always. You can do almost anything you want in the short term, in the moment. Right. But it's that there is a price for that and some teams push it more than others do. And if you get a, if you win a Super bowl out of it, nobody ever gives a damn that you had a couple years where you had to clean house. Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

Which they did two years.

[Seth Payne]

I say. It's funny, though, because as people say, the cap is a myth. The cap is a myth. It's been over the course of the past eight years when the Saints were in absolute hell because of the way they managed the cap. Like, no, there's. There, there's a, there's a limit to what you can do and you got to be really careful about just how often you use that credit card spending. As of right now, what the Texans have done is they've really, they've spent a boatload of money on defensive players that they feel really good about, but who are still young players. And if it comes time to worry, that becomes a problem, then it becomes a problem. But I don't feel like they've spent so aggressively that it keeps them from. They're not at the point where they can't retain the young guys that they really want.

[Demico Ryans]

No.

[Sean Pendergast]

And when Nick gets asked about it, he says, no, we feel good about how we got everything structured.

[Seth Payne]

I mean, if you look at the Lions and what they had to do, look, David Montgomery is. That's not, you know, having to make the choice, okay, well, we got to pay Jameer Gibbs and man, can we afford to keep or give a New contract. Contract to David Montgomery. He's a 29 year old running back. No, it doesn't. It doesn't make sense. But it's not like the Lions are in cap hell. They just had to make a tougher cap decision than if, if they had just boatloads of space and that this was the year they were going to go all in.

[Sean Pendergast]

Did you see that Jameer Gibbs and Bijon Robinson did not practice yesterday at their respective training camps?

[Seth Payne]

No, they were both healthy. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Did not practice. They're both trying to get new contracts right now.

[Nick Casario]

Oh.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, all right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Nick Casario]

They're holding.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that, that'll get interesting. You know, that position is always one that's very controversial as to whether teams want to pay guys big, big bucks or not.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

So that, that'll. That and that's at least the, the Lions are a team that's paid a lot of guys. Yeah, they paid a lot of guys. I would give Kalen Bullock that contract right there.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

I think he's a better player than Grant Delpit. If Kalyn Bullock's deal that he ends up getting from the Texans a year from now or two years from now, whatever is three years, 48 million. And who he is is who he was last year. And with some assumed growth built in because he might be better this year with Reed Blankenship back there with him,

[Seth Payne]

as you pointed out. Right. And when they can have him back and just play in deep center field, they. Which they couldn't do at times last year just because they didn't trust the other safety back there. So they just had to play a little bit more conservatively. Yeah. Like he's, like he does things that very few other safeties can do. He still needs to grow and mature like all young players, but it's pretty freakish.

[Sean Pendergast]

Antibodies to you, my friend.

[Seth Payne]

Yes, antibodies to you.

[Sean Pendergast]

We'll be back 6am tomorrow giving you the rundown of day two of training camp here. So keep it tuned here all day long. John Harris and Mark Vandermeer are up next in the in the loop. Reggie Attatula, John Lopez after that. We'll see y' all tomorrow, everybody.

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[Sean Pendergast]

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[Seth Payne]

goes half the distance, how embarrassing for him?

[Sean Pendergast]

I wonder, is sport clips better than sports? Because Sport clips haircuts is sports on TV plus an expert haircut, hot steam

[Seth Payne]

towel and massaging shampoo tear up his comically large check. Which is better than sports plus public embarrassment Sport clips? It's a game changer.

[Sean Pendergast]

Check it [e-mail] every week on the

[Seth Payne]

Moth podcast, you'll hear true stories that

[Sean Pendergast]

will intrigue you, inspire you and make you laugh, he said.

[Seth Payne]

Is there anything in your diet that

[Sean Pendergast]

might be spiking your blood sugar?

[Seth Payne]

I said. Sometimes I eat pizza until I'm unconscious, he said.

[Sean Pendergast]

I think that might be it for real.

[Seth Payne]

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

[Sean Pendergast]

follow and listen to the Moth Wherever

[Seth Payne]

you get your podcasts.