Payne and Pendergast July 31st,2026

Summary

Payne & Pendergast – July 31st, 2026

Podcast: Payne & Pendergast (Audacy/610 AM Houston)
Hosts: Seth Payne & Sean Pendergast
Main Theme:
Day three of Houston Texans training camp coverage, detailed analysis of the state of the Texans’ offense, player updates, insider interviews, scrutiny of player contract negotiations (CJ Stroud vs. Baker Mayfield), Astros' playoff push, and a wild Rockets off-court story.
Date: July 31, 2026

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Episode Overview

Live from Houston Texans Training Camp, Sean and Seth break down the state of Texans football entering the 2026 season with an in-depth focus on offensive improvement, roster competition, and training camp insights. The pair also dive into the Astros’ surprising resurgence in the AL West, new headlines from the Rockets, and a headline-grabbing player contract saga comparison featuring CJ Stroud and Baker Mayfield. Expect signature banter, plenty of player insight, and an unfiltered look at H-Town sports.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Texans Training Camp: Energy, Improvement, and Camaraderie

[01:19–06:30]

• Positive Vibes at Camp:
  Seth: “My overarching theme… is I do not have a complete and total sense of utter despair about the offense.”
  Both hosts agree that this year’s offense looks far more functional and sharp compared to last year’s hapless, mistake-prone group. Mental breakdowns and blitz misreads are gone, and the new-look O-line seems far better organized and efficient.
• Offense Finally Punching Back:
  Sean compares the Texans’ improvement to the arc of the Rocky movies, noting that the offense is landing punches rather than being a “tomato can” (04:37). They’re not just surviving, but responding competitively in practice.

“What makes it compelling is when the underdog punches back. And they're punching back now.” – Sean, [04:45]

• Defense Still Strong:
  Both agree the defense remains stout; early struggles are more a sign of offensive growth than defensive shortcoming.

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2. Player & Coach Updates: Injuries, Position Battles, and Standouts

[02:27, 11:14, 13:31, 16:19, 47:46, 52:03, 54:39, 56:47, 60:52]

• Jake Hansen Injury Update:
  Suffered a foot injury at practice (reported by D'Amico Ryans, [02:31, 40:34]). Severity unknown but he was carted off with the full team showing support.
• Tank Dell’s Return:
  D'Amico Ryans reveals it’s the staff—not Tank—holding him out for caution as he re-integrates. Seth likens Tank’s slow rollout to a National League pitcher adjusting to the bat: “You just don't want to overload him physically or his anxiety level by just throwing him right back out there.” [12:09]
• David Montgomery on Facing Will Anderson & Danielle Hunter:
  Montgomery expresses gratitude to be on the same side as “two freaks” – referring to the pass rush duo [14:14, 16:19]. Their intensity in practice is described as a bar-raising experience for the offense.
• Emerging Stars:
  • Jaden Higgins: Making a noticeable “jump” as a movable chess piece among WRs [57:36–58:12].
  • Woody Marks: Praised for transition into a starting RB; effective both in the run game and as a receiver, showing advanced pass protection [55:52].
  • Brevin Jordan & WR Depth: Brevin flashing at TE, Justin Watson and Louis Bond in the WR competition [59:40].
  • Kaden McDonald: Rookie DT showing exceptional strength and eagerness to learn, but still developing technique [61:15].
  • Logan Hall & Solomon Bird: Depth and versatility, with Hall’s positional flexibility and Bird’s flashes in camp highlighted [65:00, 65:49].

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3. Practice Mechanics & Coaching Staff Nuances

[49:27–53:21]

• Sharper, More Organized Offense:
  Mental errors are down; even without pads, the line functions crisply. Missed assignments and blitz confusion—rampant last year—have largely disappeared.
• Coaching Styles:
  Line coach Cole Popovich gets credit for his intense, old-school demeanor that resonates with the current group. The culture is described as “connecting first, then coaching hard,” aligning with D'Amico Ryans’ vision.

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4. CJ Stroud vs. Baker Mayfield: Contract Negotiation Styles

[22:50–36:07]

• CJ Stroud’s Approach:
  Stroud remains outwardly calm, letting his agent handle negotiations and avoiding public drama:

  “I'm focused on ball… letting them handle it and seems like everything is going great.” – CJ Stroud, [26:10]

  Hosts joke about Stroud’s colloquialisms (“hold my bargain down”), but universally praise his professionalism and focus [26:43–27:34].

• Baker Mayfield’s Approach:
  In contrast, Mayfield is public with his irritation at contract discussions, expressing feelings of being “disrespected” and “undervalued”:

  “I really know what I've brought to this franchise, leadership wise and even play wise. It's been some of the best years of my career... disappointing to not have… to feel disrespect a little bit, and that's really the disappointing part, to feel undervalued after, you know, thinking you've earned it.” – Baker Mayfield, [29:01, also at 31:36 & 32:25]

• Hosts’ Take:
  Baker criticized for breaking his own “hard deadline” and making negotiation struggles public; Stroud praised for maturity and minimal distraction. Sean: “Credit to CJ, he hasn't made this a bigger story than it needs to be.” [34:33]

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5. Astros’ Playoff Push: Return from the Brink

[37:36–76:16]

• AL West Race:
  Astros, previously written off, have surged back to a half-game behind the Rangers despite a tough start (winning 8 of their last 9). “They control their own destiny,” says Sean [37:36–38:00].
• Rotation Juggling & Trade Deadline:
  Discussion around Hunter Brown, Imai's home/road splits, and the team’s likely ‘hold’ or modest ‘buy’ posture at the trade deadline, rather than selling off core pieces.
• Astros = Baseball Cockroaches:
  Ken Rosenthal called the Astros "the cockroaches of baseball” for their ability to survive and thrive in adversity [74:29].
• Roster News:
  JP France and Lance McCullers both discussed in terms of injury and release; thoughtful about how careers can change quickly [39:29–40:21].

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6. Houston Rockets Drama: Tari Eason’s Bleach Incident

[41:53–44:58]

• Off-court Trouble:
  Tari Eason files for a restraining order after domestic incident wherein his ex allegedly poured bleach on over $90,000 worth of clothes, threatened him, and resorted to violence.
• Hosts’ Reaction:
  Seth reflects on the broader issue of personal distractions hurting performance, but notes: “I don't give anybody grace based on stuff that's going on in their personal life... compartmentalize, man.” [44:27–44:58]

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7. Coaching & Program Blunders: UNC, Lombardi, and Belichick

[78:27–86:06]

• Michael Lombardi’s Suspension:
  North Carolina’s football GM Michael Lombardi (Belichick disciple) placed on leave for undisclosed HR and NIL issues. Bruce Feldman calls him “the worst general manager in college sports,” humorously noting, “He should be getting his paycheck with a ski mask on.” [80:41–80:49]
• Belichick’s Blind Spot:
  Segment lampoons the NFL-to-college transition for the Belichick coaching tree, emphasizing arrogance and lack of fit at UNC, with hosts debating whether Belichick or Urban Meyer is the bigger “flameout” in cross-league coaching transitions.

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8. AFC South Update & Colts Analysis

[68:01–72:06]

• Colts QB Daniel Jones Returns from Achilles:
  Hosts skeptical of the “Achilles injuries are easy now” narrative but concede Jones looks mobile; say stopping Jonathan Taylor remains the key to stopping the Colts.
• Division Dynamics:
  Chris Ballard (Colts’ GM) on hot seat, admits he won’t discuss contract extension: “We need to win.” [70:32]

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Notable & Memorable Quotes

“I do not have a complete and total sense of utter despair about the offense.” – Seth Payne, [02:13]

“What makes it compelling is when the underdog punches back. And they're punching back now.” – Sean Pendergast, [04:45]

"Tank feels like he’s ready for more, but they're going to be very, very careful about it.” – Seth Payne, regarding Tank Dell’s workload, [11:48]

"I've noticed a very different, indistinct absence of an utter lack of… despair.” – Seth, on training camp optimism [47:46]

“I'm just happy that I’m on the same team as him now, quite frankly.” – David Montgomery on Will Anderson and Danielle Hunter, [14:14]

“Disrespected, undervalued, disappointed... those were the words that all made headlines.” – Sean, summing up Baker Mayfield's public contract comments, [29:47]

“The Astros are the cockroaches of baseball.” – Ken Rosenthal (quoted by Sean), [74:29]

"He should be getting his paycheck with a ski mask on.” – Bruce Feldman on Michael Lombardi, [80:48]

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Segment Timestamps

• Texans’ Camp Vibes, O-Line & Offense – [01:19–06:30]
• Injuries, Tank Dell, David Montgomery’s Perspective – [02:27, 11:14–14:14]
• Position Battles and Standouts – [47:46–61:39]
• CJ Stroud vs. Baker Mayfield Contract Drama – [22:50–36:07]
• Astros’ AL West Push & Trade Talk – [37:36–76:16]
• Tari Eason Off-court Saga – [41:53–44:58]
• UNC/Lombardi/Belichick College Football Segment – [78:27–86:06]
• AFC South/Colts Update – [68:01–72:06]

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Closing Tone & Takeaways

• Upbeat, Sarcastic, Informed: The show delivers high-engagement analysis blended with classic Houston sports radio snark, relatability, and deep local insight.
• Optimism for the Texans: Clear sense that this is a different, better team—especially on offense—compared to last year’s start.
• Astros Up, Rockets Weird: Optimism for the surging Astros, bemusement (with sympathy) at the latest Rockets off-court drama.
• Professionalism Matters: Repeated praise for CJ Stroud’s maturity in contract negotiations—especially notable vis-à-vis Baker Mayfield’s approach.

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This episode provides a comprehensive, boots-on-the-ground insight into Texans training camp, the broader state of Houston sports, and the stories shaping the region’s teams and stars.
Great for fans who want to feel the texture of camp and locker room, and who appreciate equal measures of keen analysis and entertaining storytelling.

Transcript

[Sean Pendergast]

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[Seth Payne]

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[Sean Pendergast]

Hey, what's happening, everybody? Happy Friday to all of you. We made it to the end of the week. We are in day three of Texans training camp. Sean Pendergast and Seth Payne with you live from the Methodist Training center, where in a matter of hours we will be out here sweating again today. Bringing the people with Seth.

[Seth Payne]

Felt good. Felt good to get a sweat in yesterday. It was good, man. Felt like I was one of those old men in the sauna that don't care who, how naked they are in front of everybody.

[Sean Pendergast]

So you were over the top that you showed up in a towel, that

[Seth Payne]

I sat buck naked with my legs spread open.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, Texans. HR was so annoying about that.

[Sean Pendergast]

But I thought you made a good point that you.

[Seth Payne]

I'm like, listen, I work in radio.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

I just had to file a report against Jesse Watt because she was talking a little too brusquely. Okay. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Really good point to them that you're not an employee of theirs so you're allowed to wear the towel with your legs.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. I've got diplomatic immunity.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's right. Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

My overwhelming, my overarching theme of the last couple days of training camp when it comes to the offense because let's be honest, nobody's worried about the defense. You know, there's Injury like Jake Hansen got injured. Okay, everybody.

[Sean Pendergast]

And we wish him the best. Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Hopefully it's not that big a deal.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right?

[Seth Payne]

Do we know if it's a big deal?

[Sean Pendergast]

We. I haven't seen anything.

[D'Amico Ryans]

I just.

[Sean Pendergast]

D' Amico said it's a foot injury

[Seth Payne]

and he went down with a foot injury yesterday.

[Sean Pendergast]

Didn't look great.

[Seth Payne]

This is what it is. Tell me if my bar is set too low, but I think the biggest difference between this year and last year in training camp is I've noticed that I, I do not have a complete and total sense of utter despair about the offense. And so the first two days, and I said this immediately after yesterday's practice in a couple. Either on a live stream or an interview or something, you know, I caught myself, I keep saying like, well, it's not pads so you don't want to read too much into it. And then I realized, you know what? I will read into it. Because part of the problem with the offensive line the last couple years hasn't been just physical mismatches or losing the physical battle. It's. It's the times in training camp, whether they're in pads or not, when defensive linemen were completely unblocked. The offense had no answer for the blitz. CJ was just left out there naked and afraid. And that's what's changed a lot is that they have hemmed up so many of these run throughs and guys just being in the backfield, whether you're in pads or not, they're just a sharper unit and they. It hasn't like it's not like it's been an electric show, you know, in the passing game or anything, but it's been functional.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes.

[Seth Payne]

Like Jaden Higgins is getting his. Brevin Jordan is getting his. This has been night and day in terms of just looking like a competent,

[Sean Pendergast]

functioning offense in terms of competitiveness. Yeah. Seth, lately on. On. On Cable television or DirecTV streaming as Amy and I use cable attached to your television. One of the channels has been showing all the Rocky movies in can say like in a marathon Y constantly. And, and I like the Rocky movie. So I wind up on. On the Rocky movies a lot of times. And in making the comparison to the Texans offense from last year to this year, you know what the thing that makes the Rocky movies is that Rocky punches back. Oh, that's on Apollo Creed and Clubber Lang and guys like that. Like last year, the Texans offense, they got punched.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

But then they were a tomato can the entire practice. They didn't punch Back. What makes it compelling is when the underdog punches back.

[Seth Payne]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

And they're punching back. Now in these first, it looks like.

[Seth Payne]

It looks like. So if we went through the Rocky movies, in the original Rocky, the Best of the Rockies, the goal was just to make it through the entire fight. He just wanted to make it 15 rounds. Kids, you used to be allowed to go 15 rounds in a boxing match, and it was.

[Sean Pendergast]

And have clear brain damage by round eight. And they're like, cool.

[Seth Payne]

Then we got wiser, like, hey, getting punched in the face is only safe for 12 rounds. All right, 13 is a little excessive.

[Sean Pendergast]

We're not animals, but that's what we're seeing out here.

[Seth Payne]

Then we got humane and we said, let's take the gloves off and call it mma.

[Baker Mayfield]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Inside a chain link fence, they're kind of gloves, right?

[Seth Payne]

So this is the thing that the. Yes, they fought back. And I do think that as I'm saying that yesterday, I also thought, okay, well, should I actually be worried about the defense that this haggard group of ne' er do Wells is landing some punches against them? Nope. Like, no, Everybody's out there. They're working hard as the same guys. Defensively, it's just a legitimately better operation. Look, early results, et cetera, et cetera. But this is how hapless it was last year at times where it really, you were waiting for the offense to show some signs of life. So I was talking to Sarge yesterday, I think, and you know, you know what I try to do is when I come out to camp, like, okay, pretend I'm an observer and I've never seen this team before and I don't know anything about them. I would come out here and I think, by and large I would say this looks like a pretty competitive football team. And I wouldn't be looking at the offense as, oh, wow, what's going on here? Like, what's. I. You know, there were times last year when I might have said, like, that's your. That's your starting quarterback. They go away. Like, you feel good about.

[Sean Pendergast]

They looked like a 2 and 15 offense last year.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, you know what? There was last year, too. I was trying to go through. And I went back and looked at some people's social media posts, hot take artists like Shaun T. Pendergast. And there, you know, it was a conversation last year about what's going on with C.J. zachary. Yeah, that was a conversation point last year. So far, I haven't seen any reason for any kind of discussion like that.

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, if you recall last year when he got to training camp, he was coming off a spring where he hardly threw it.

[Seth Payne]

All right. Yeah. So he had bulked up.

[Sean Pendergast]

He had a shoulder thing going on.

[Seth Payne]

Hadn't had any real reps with all 11 offensive players. In an offense where the quarterback is expected to do a lot and direct traffic with all 11 guys.

[Sean Pendergast]

This was D' Amico Ryan's yesterday talking about the offense has looked much, much better. But I like that d' Amico's holding to a st because he said compared to day one, the offense took a step backwards in day two.

[D'Amico Ryans]

The one thing that stood out to me is, you know, we got a. We had some poor pre snap penalties. We kind of went backwards offensively. So those are some things that stood out where we can clean those things up. Defensively, we got to finish on the football better. Had a couple opportunities to take the football away and we did it. So both sides right there got things we can clean up on coming back tomorrow.

[Seth Payne]

So that felt like kind of when you criticize your one child for being academically ineligible, but then the other you're like, how come you didn't get. You got it. You got an A minus, right?

[Sean Pendergast]

B plus.

[Seth Payne]

Wait, you got an A minus.

[Ad Read / Announcer]

No.

[Seth Payne]

You are an A student favorite child. Yes, that's exactly what it is. The Ovens is kind of the one. Like, yeah, he's doing his best. No. Now I think the important thing about that is d' Amico framed it as the entire, you know, they took a step back. It was, as far as I could tell, it was just one set of downs for the number. For the number one.

[Sean Pendergast]

It was during the second team session.

[Ad Read / Announcer]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

And it really otherwise. And it stood out. It was notable and conspicuous because it was the only one. But there was just a bad stretch where Keelan, Rutledge and C.J. stroud had a fumbled snap exchange. C.J. was under center. Danielle picked it up. Right. I think it was. Danielle picked it up.

[D'Amico Ryans]

Yes, it was.

[Seth Payne]

Daniel would have run for a touchdown.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep.

[Seth Payne]

Unless Keelan could have caught him.

[Mark Vandermeer]

So

[Sean Pendergast]

Kalin riding Didio Hunter on his

[Seth Payne]

back, fueled by anger and rage at botching the snap.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes.

[Seth Payne]

And then there was a run that went nowhere. Then there was an incomplete pass. And then there was. And then that was the same set of downs where CJ and Nico just were not on the same page because Nico was maybe a half step on Stingley and thought CJ was going to go over the top with it. CJ actually threw back shoulder the sideline. Yeah. I I even looked at that play though as a positive because I think CJ placed it exactly where he wanted to put it. It was just a miscommunication or a miss read by between him and Nico.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, I feel if we were watching these two teams like the, the. The first string, specifically the first string offense and defense the last two days and it were an actual game and I'm just looking at the quality of play and someone says what do you think the score would be right now if this were an actual game being played? Knowing that they're just running plays at the same line of scrimmage, obviously they're not moving up and down a field. It feels, it feels like the defense would be. The team that has. The Texans defense would be up like 13 to 10 right now.

[Seth Payne]

I think it was. I think it would be six nothing.

[Sean Pendergast]

You do?

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, because I think Daniel runs that. That fumbleback for a touchdown. But then Kaimi uncharacteristically misses the extra point. But everybody misses an extra point, you know, every year or two. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like. I want Kaimi to get any of that stuff out of the way early. So I know, I think that the. There hasn't been. There haven't been a lot of deep shots like by the offense, which I don't expect that. I think any offense in the league right now practicing against this secondary wouldn't have a lot of deep shots. That's why the one play, the one play. Even though CJ and Nico weren't on the same page, I felt like the, the process as far as like, hey Nico, one of the best receivers in the league going against Derek Singley, one of the best defensive backs in the league. It's not like Nico destroyed Derek or anything, but there was a chance for a play there and I think C.J. threw the ball accurately. He just wasn't on the same page with Nico.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep. Here's one more from d' Ameco Ryan's. The Tank Dell was out here yesterday working out on the side with the Jugs machine there. He eventually got in and as promised by Nick Casario, got in and did some walkthrough things. It's a big mystery right now with tanks where all we're left to do is read how he looks, doing the things that he's doing out here. And then what people like d' Ameco Ryans and CJ Stroud are saying here was d'. Ameco. This is, this is I think the first time d' Ameco has specifically Been asked about Tank. But anyway, I thought this was an interesting answer yesterday on d' Ameco and how eager Tank is to get back out there.

[D'Amico Ryans]

The daily Tank Dale question. It's.

[Sean Pendergast]

Tank is out here.

[D'Amico Ryans]

He's working again. He's. Man, he's very eager. I would say he's eager to get back out there. So it's not from Tank. It's me. I'm holding. Holding Tank back a little bit to make sure when he's ready to go, he's able to stay out there.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's the first person I've heard kind of. Kind of raise their hand and say, hey, look, I'm the one who's keeping Tank from being out there. Yeah, d' Ameco like, it's me, guys.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, I think that was.

[Sean Pendergast]

I feel he's probably taking a bullet for the entire organization.

[Seth Payne]

Well, I feel like Casario and d' Amico have, you know, kind of hinted at this, that, you know, the Tank feels like he's ready for more, but they're going to be very, very careful about it, I think. I can't remember whether it was Kasseri or somebody else that talked about how, you know, there's so much that goes into when you've been out of football for two years. There's.

[Baker Mayfield]

There.

[Seth Payne]

There are a lot of things that Tank hasn't done in a long time, and I think you want to build it up slowly to where just a. Being comfortable in the offense, knowing where to line up, doing everything you can to where it doesn't feel like it's just a big old heap of uncertainty and uncomfortable being uncomfortable as he's also trying to run routes versus Derek Stingley and Kamari Lasseter. So I think that part of it is just building up those reps slowly. I've heard pitchers talk about this before. When you're. Back in the days when there was. When there wasn't a DH in one of the baseball leagues, you might have a guy, you know from the AL that all of a sudden you're playing in a National League game and he's got a bat and run the bases for the first time and in a long time. And I got. I can't remember if it was Clemens or somebody else. He said just getting on base. He was. He was kind of realized, like, wow, I got to control my heart rate and my breathing because everything's just. You're thinking about all this stuff. It's just uncomfortable and you're. There's a high stress level because you're Just uncomfortable. You're doing something you're not really comfortable doing. So I think, like, likewise. Even though it sounds silly, there's certain things with Tank where you just don't want to overload him physically or his anxiety level by just throwing him right back out there. That's a great copy.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's a National League pitcher right now, basically back in the early 2000s.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

We got our first David Montgomery press conference yesterday. First one as a, you know, like out here in training camp. I know he did one right after they signed him.

[Seth Payne]

Would have been Clement. Clement spent his whole.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, yeah.

[Seth Payne]

No, it would have been Clement because he spent his whole time in the al so, yeah, when they were playing

[Sean Pendergast]

in Nashville, it was definitely Roger. I remember talking.

[Seth Payne]

It was Roger. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep, yep.

[Seth Payne]

We might have a chance to have a chat with him about that.

[Sean Pendergast]

We may. We may soon. Perhaps.

[Seth Payne]

Yes, perhaps, perhaps.

[Sean Pendergast]

David Montgomery met with the media yesterday. He was asked about Will Anderson and Daniel Hunter. This is his first training camp going against these two guys. And I'm kind of glad. It doesn't sound like people told David Montgomery, hey, you know, last year it was really hard going against these guys.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

But he did say he's glad he's. That they're his teammates.

[D'Amico Ryans]

I'm just happy that I'm on the same team as him now, quite frankly. And I'm on the same team as Danil because they're both freaks, you know, I think the first time at Boar's

[Seth Payne]

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[Sean Pendergast]

Hey, y'. All. I'm Maddie. And I'm Poodle.

[Seth Payne]

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[Sean Pendergast]

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[Seth Payne]

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[Sean Pendergast]

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[Seth Payne]

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[Seth Payne]

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[D'Amico Ryans]

I came out here, we was at OTAs and we was doing like some team stuff. And I'm watching like the snap and I'm like, he jumping offside, he jumping offside this whole time. He not. He just off the ball like super fast. So it's like seeing somebody come in he about his business. You know, him being like a little bit younger and him carrying himself in a way to where he makes me want to get better. So I love seeing Will go. I love seeing Danil go. I love seeing that whole defense go because it's going to force us on the other side of the ball to be better.

[Sean Pendergast]

The question is obviously about Will, but he mixed Danil in there.

[Seth Payne]

Yesterday I was. I filmed some of the defensive linemen doing some of the pass rush drills and Will, I showed it to you before the. I posted it on my Twitter. FKA Twitter. But he's. He's doing that Daniil hop step now.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's just what he needed, a new one.

[Seth Payne]

But he did it so freaking fast. It was almost one of those ones where, man, the way he executed it, he better be sure he's only doing that against the really good offensive tackles because the bad offensive tackles, like Will was upfield and then back underneath so quick that the bad offensive tackles wouldn't have had time to overreact and he would have hopped right back into the offense. That's the thing we'll talk to JJ about. We got JJ coming up in the next couple of weeks that like, like this happens with really good defensive linemen. Sometimes if they're planning on a counter, they got to be careful because they're so effective with their first move that they counter back in the jackass they're going against. Just standing there like a fence post, you know, it's like you're trying to juke a fence post. Fence post never bites. It doesn't have the lateral mobility.

[Sean Pendergast]

Scouting report for Will Anderson is they hand him the pff rankings of all the offensive linemen. You only do this from 50. The linemen of 50 and above only use it for them.

[Seth Payne]

That is. It actually is something that young pass rushers learn. The guys that actually have speed. This didn't apply to me. Is that, like, trust your first move, because you're going to. You're going to win with your first move a lot more than you might expect. The guys, when they're young and they don't have the confidence, and then. Then you. The counter is just kind of intuitive. I think that with Will, though, A, it was cool. It was cool to see that move, because you can see he's adding to the repertoire.

[Sean Pendergast]

Not if you're the other 31 teams, it's not.

[Seth Payne]

But, B, I think that we're at this point where, you know, during OTAs. Oh, it's. Will is wrecking practice. Will is wrecking practice. I haven't. I haven't seen any accusations of him wrecking practice, but he's. He's still making the same plays. It's just that the offense is also. It's not just one in a litany of other guys also wrecking practice. Right, Right. You know, it's like, okay, Will got a tackle for a loss. You know, Solomon Bird had a nice tackle for a loss yesterday. But the offense is having success, too, so it doesn't feel like a steady onslaught.

[Sean Pendergast]

Punching back of practice.

[Seth Payne]

It's like, yeah, how many times can you wreck a practice? You know, last year, it was like, okay, there's four.

[Baker Mayfield]

There's four.

[Seth Payne]

Four TFLs in the first four plays, guys. I think practice is wrecked.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Ad Read / Announcer]

All right.

[Sean Pendergast]

They're standing on top of it. Stamping on it.

[Seth Payne]

At that point, you're choking a corpse.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, it's broken. Stop stamping it, Will.

[Seth Payne]

Stop wrecking practice. I wrecked practice in the first period. This is just. This is just us committing war crimes at this point.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's right. Hey, did you notice when you awoke this morning that the Astros are only a half game back?

[Seth Payne]

Sorry, Rangers. They must have lost last night.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Yesterday afternoon actually, is an afternoon game, so we got to enjoy the fact they lost all afternoon. It was great.

[Seth Payne]

I tell you what happened to me last night. I went to bed early again. I'm still catching up for my night of no sleep. I just. I fell asleep with my. My AirPods in.

[Ad Read / Announcer]

Mm.

[Seth Payne]

And I just. It must have been on. I don't know if it was on Twitter or whatever, but I woke up about an hour after I'd fallen asleep.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

And there were people in my house. That was weird. There were people in my house. I didn't know that I was wearing my AirPods. Oh, no way. I heard people rustling around in the next room, and it was like their feet were sliding and they were having some conversation about, like, well, what are we gonna do? And there's this. And I was like, hell. I woke up, I was like, hey, dude, hey. And I ran. I ran out of the room, and I'm looking around and I'm yelling like, hey, who's here? Who's in here? And I was so confused because there were intruders in my home. Brandy wasn't there. I don't know where she was.

[Sean Pendergast]

So were you, like, on TikTok or something?

[Seth Payne]

That was the least of my concerns.

[Sean Pendergast]

So were you on TikTok or were you on Twitter? But they were like, scrolling videos.

[Seth Payne]

Finally I realized I had my AirPods in because I took. Because I took them out to hear what was actually going on. This is how dumb I was because I was just, you know, I was waking up, I take my AirPods out, and I was like, wait, I gotta hear what's going on here. And it was silent. I was like, where'd they go? Where'd they go? Then I put two and two together.

[D'Amico Ryans]

Sean.

[Baker Mayfield]

Oh, good job.

[D'Amico Ryans]

Good job.

[Seth Payne]

Wait a second.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, my God.

[Seth Payne]

It was some video. And I don't. I was so confused. I just went. I shut it down and went to bed. It was some video of, like, these women rust, like, rustling around in a kitchen, like, and maybe they were preparing a meal.

[Sean Pendergast]

So you had started watching some video, and then whatever social media platform you were on just started scrolling through.

[Seth Payne]

And I ended up waking up on the People rustling up.

[Sean Pendergast]

Seth wakes up, he's like, will Smith was in my kitchen and Chris Rock slapped him right across the face.

[Seth Payne]

And I can't believe I. That's how sleep deprived I am. I went right back to sleep. Of course, I was just, you know, I was ready to kill somebody with a butcher knife or my bare hands.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, my God.

[Seth Payne]

I was going to wreck their practice.

[Sean Pendergast]

All right, this is.

[Ad Read / Announcer]

This.

[Sean Pendergast]

See, this is. But this is when you're at your best, man. You know? This is when you with the.

[Seth Payne]

With the confused.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah. That was very funny story right there.

[Seth Payne]

I'm still kind of freaked out by it. You know what I like, though?

[Ad Read / Announcer]

No, no, no.

[Seth Payne]

I like that I was ready for action.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, you're ready.

[Seth Payne]

There was no step back, you know, Like, I was ready. I heard three women rummaging through my kitchen, and I was ready to take care of business.

[Sean Pendergast]

You're ready to clunk all their heads together like Mo. Get out of here.

[Seth Payne]

You ever think that Seth Payne isn't afraid to take take on three women that sound like they're trying to cook up a recipe? You're wrong.

[Sean Pendergast]

You're wrong.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

You flat out wrong. Your recipe, ladies.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, my God. All right, we're off and running on a Friday. Appreciate you guys tuning in. Baseball Talk, brief as it was, is brought to you on Brought to you by Xfinity, here on Sports Radio 610, presented by Xfinity. Score. The most reliable Wi Fi 1 price, five years guaranteed. Xfinity. Imagine that. What would we be saying if C.J. stroud was handling his contract situation the same way Baker Mayfield is? We've got the audio of both. Compare contrast. We'll do it.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, he had a really good off season. It's probably the best offseason he's had since he's been here. He's had a good attitude. He's been consistent, 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. That was Nick Casario a couple days ago, meeting with the media, talking about C.J. stroud's contract. Nick will join us on Tuesday next week. Tuesday, August 4th. I sometime in the 7 o' clock hour. I'm nailing down a specific time, but I saw. I talked to Nick. Day one of camping.

[Seth Payne]

You show up when it works for us, Sean. That's true.

[Sean Pendergast]

No, that's what I told him.

[Seth Payne]

I told him that with my eyes.

[D'Amico Ryans]

You did?

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. We didn't actually have a conversation, but we nodded at each other and I basically gave him that look like, you'll come on when we tell you to come on.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep. And he was cool.

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[Sean Pendergast]

Hey guys, it's Daxton and Hayden from Blondies Out Loud. And if you've ever thought about starting a podcast or making money from one we use create a lab from Odyssey for our show and it's honestly been so easy. It's free hosting and it gives you a really simple way to earn on

[Seth Payne]

top of whatever your already doing, which of course we love because it just

[Sean Pendergast]

adds another stream without the extra work. So if you're a creator or podcast curious, check it out at creators.odyssey.com the snack wrap plus Caesar sauce equals extra

[Seth Payne]

crispy chicken Caesary Greatness. Sounds delicious. Caesar sauce at McDonald's for a limited time. Bottom up with it.

[Sean Pendergast]

So, so that was Casario talking about Stroud's off season and yeah, they're having productive conversations about a contract extension for CJ Stroud. Here was CJ when he was asked about it after practice on day one.

[D'Amico 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, 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.

[Baker Mayfield]

Okay.

[Sean Pendergast]

So my agent's handling it. Things are going fine. Not going to make a big public display out of all this. I think he's handling it really well.

[Seth Payne]

He's handled it well. He's botching the hold my end of the bargain up. He's done that twice now. He can't even get the prepositions right. He's had.

[Sean Pendergast]

I've accepted that this is how it's going to be.

[Seth Payne]

In the OTAs, he said, I've held my bargain up. And this time he said, I've held my bargain down. We know what he's trying to say, but I just wanted to get it right. I feel like once he nails it, then they're gonna be ready to pay him on that.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes. Yes. What are they waiting for him to say? Hold down your end of the bargain?

[Seth Payne]

That's my phrase.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right. The.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, I think they're pretty civil and congenial and sounds like there's been a little bit of back and forth. Yeah. And not, not all that, not all that confrontational.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's not gonna make a public. He's not gonna make a public display out of this. Now that we've heard that CJ audience.

[Seth Payne]

He's holding this bargain right in the middle.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's holding that bargain right in between four fingers and a thumb.

[Seth Payne]

Man, you hold a bargain too tightly, you'll kill it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

If you hold it too lightly, it'll fly away.

[Sean Pendergast]

Hold it like a gentle, A gentle dove.

[Seth Payne]

Yes.

[Sean Pendergast]

So. So. But overall, cj, and not just the other day in the tent over there doing the press conference, but I think throughout the off season, I think he's given good answers. It sounds like he's had a really good offseason from what everybody's saying. We just heard Nick Casario say he's at his best off season as a Houston Texan. So this is fresh in our minds. CJ's answer, Baker Mayfield is trying to get a new contract as well. Now this would be his. You know, he. Baker came into the league several years before cj, but Baker is in the last year of a three year, hundred million dollar deal with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. So he's making about 30 million a year. He's got a year left on the deal. Baker thinks he should be in that $55 million class, you know, up with those guys that are in the 50 plus million dollars.

[Seth Payne]

The franchise tag for quarterbacks right now is 55 million or so, correct? Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. So he's got one year, he's got this year left. He's trying to get a new long term deal after this year. And so he's been trying all offseason. He's been very public about, hey, when training camp gets here, no more negotiations. If it's going to get done, it gets done by training camp. And that's Just the way it goes. Otherwise, he's headed to free agency.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Here was Baker Mayfield yesterday at his first press conference at training camp. Not nearly as. Not. Not nearly handling. Handling it nearly as kind of well,

[Seth Payne]

for saying it was going to be a hard deadline and then they're not going to think about it. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. He's. He's much more vocal about how his emotions with this than C.J. stroud is.

[Baker Mayfield]

I wanted the deal done and set the deadline and told them it was going to be all ball after that, and I did mean that. And I don't know if they thought I was just going to take some of the offers that they gave, but I'm at the point of my career and understanding what I've brought to this franchise. One, I'm very, very thankful for the chance they gave me. Do not get me wrong on that. But I've also know. I really know what I've brought to this franchise, leadership wise and even play wise. It's been some of the best years of my career, and I think it's only going to trend upwards just being comfortable and feeling that. So disappointing in that regard, to not have, you know, to feel disrespect a little bit. And that's really the disappointing part, to feel undervalued after, you know, thinking you've earned it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Disrespected, undervalued, disappointed. Those were the words that all made headlines yesterday.

[Seth Payne]

Right. Right. Yeah. Which is like, honestly, like, I like Baker Mayfield. He's grown on me. I didn't like him when he was a younger player, but now he's kind of grown on me. And I think he is the real. I think he is the real deal when it comes to toughness and all of that. But, like, man, not everything needs to be said out loud. You don't have to add any extra drama to this situation, especially if you said, hey, we're gonna have negotiations, and then I'm gonna not worry about it. Oh, it's first week of training camp, and it sounds like I've got a little. I've got some caught up in my feelings out.

[D'Amico Ryans]

Where.

[Seth Payne]

Where'd Mr. Tough Guy go?

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, that's the thing, too.

[Seth Payne]

Swallow your feelings and let it turn into a tumor someday, but don't be blabbing about it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, the re. And the. The. The. The audio was actually about four minutes long. That was just the 40 seconds or so that popped. But he tried to make it clear, like. But no, I'm focused now. It's all about winning. It's all about moving forward. We'll see. I mean it sounds like he's kind of up in his feelings about this whole thing and the way he's getting quote unquote treated right now sounds like

[Seth Payne]

a little bit less psychotic.

[Sean Pendergast]

Brandon Iuk here's how you know, here's how you know it's, it's a little bit, but here's how you know it's really sticking with him. He did a follow up interview after that press conference with Jeremy Fowler, probably after practice. Jeremy Fowler of ESPN was out at Tampa Bay Buccaneers practice yesterday and it would have been very easy for when Jeremy Fowler starts asking contract questions for him to say I said my piece at the press conference, I'm football now. It would have been very easy to do that. Take a listen to this audio. He goes deep on what exactly is bothering him about the offers that the Buccaneers have made. I'm here at Baker Mayfield. Baker, you've used words like disrespected, disappointed, undervalued when it comes to your contract. What value did the team place on you that made you feel that way?

[Baker Mayfield]

I mean it was, it was all three between years average and guarantees. Probably the most disappointing is years didn't get offered anything over two. And so when you, when you're told you're a franchise quarterback and to handle it otherwise, that's disappointing, disappointing. So felt like I earned that. It's not a, it's not a poor me pity party over here. It is what it is. And so that's why, that's why I said the deadline was training camp. Focus on the team focused on getting better and trying to give this team a better chance to win a Super Bowl.

[Sean Pendergast]

What was their reasoning for that?

[Baker Mayfield]

For the deadline or for the number

[Sean Pendergast]

of years that weren't there for.

[Baker Mayfield]

I don't know. I don't know why, why I wasn't there. So I can't give an explanation.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, you've said you're a franchise quarterback. You've shown that. Do you believe and did you make a stance that you belong in that you know, top 10 range 50 plus million dollars. That's sort of the market and where you are.

[Baker Mayfield]

Yeah. And I told them, I said it publicly. I was never trying to reset the market. I know where I fit in on that. I'm not over realistic on that. But it's also, I know just to be compensated put in that category and salary cap keeps going up. The guys that are going to re sign next year, it's going to look a lot different. So at the end of the day, it'd probably be still right about top 15 next year this time, and. But it's unfortunate they failed to recognize that.

[Sean Pendergast]

How far away were they from that range?

[Baker Mayfield]

Pretty far.

[D'Amico Ryans]

Yeah,

[Sean Pendergast]

he's. I mean, that is dishing.

[Seth Payne]

That's dish. And then he would talk with Prisco later on, too. Really?

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, he talked to Prisco, Same thing. And was he doing the same thing? Yeah, basically he said probably, like, you know, I gotta give it to everybody if they're asking it. I can't play my favorites now.

[Seth Payne]

He said that. Now, remember, after Hardo. Hardo Baker had set an ultimatum and said there'd be no discussions, he said he's open to potentially signing a deal. Now after, like, this is where I'm like, all right, dude, you set an ultimatum, you said a hard deadline, and now you're wavering on the deadline.

[D'Amico Ryans]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

It sounds like maybe the Bucks actually know you better than you know yourself.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right, right.

[Seth Payne]

And okay, they lowballed you. Yeah. Yeah. And now you're open to doing something past your deadline. He's way up in his feelings. Just a bad place to be when you're in a negotiation.

[Sean Pendergast]

In a negotiation and a bad place to be as a quarterback when you're the quarterback of the football team. Absolutely.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

So, I mean, I was watching that yesterday. I'm like, man, I. I just wanted to give CJ even more credit for how he's been handling his business here. I think there was. I think with Texan fans, there was, like, not major worry, but slight worry that that's what the Texans would be getting a version of this off season. Yeah, we either, at the very least through the spring, when the player has a little bit of leverage, you know, the voluntary stuff, things like that credit. CJ Stroud, he's not only been doing the stuff away from the building, according to everybody that he needs to do to get into this conversation that Baker's having, but he's been doing all the stuff out here. You know, every voluntary thing, every, you know, every rep out here, you know, every. Every question in a press conference about it, he is deferring and giving a 15 second answer and moving on.

[Seth Payne]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

So that kind of hammered home for me how CJ's been handling, and I

[Seth Payne]

think we've given him a lot of credit for that. You know, we've said that a lot. It's that, man, you know what? Credit to cj, he hasn't made this a bigger story than it needs to be. The only thing. The only thing that made it a bigger story was when people just took that one sound bite of him saying, I've held my end of the bargain up, paraphrasing during minicamp. But it was like he had said that immediately after he said, my job is to improve every day. I'm gonna let my agent handle everything else. Like, it wasn't like he was making some kind of bold statement or anything and. But, but it was a good soundbite. So people ran with it. I think by and large he's just, he's been quiet about it and said all the right things.

[Sean Pendergast]

I agree. I agree. Baker, on the other hand. Flamethrower everywhere.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. Prisco had envisioned a scenario in which both Mayfield and the Bucs were playing well and the team wanted to get something done. Baker said, well, unless it's some deal where they actually recognize my value and they want me here long term. That was the biggest difference. There was zero long term lockdown. Kind of opened the door maybe to

[Sean Pendergast]

clearly a soft deadline.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. So the franchise tag next year is 50 million for quarterbacks. This year it's 43 million per year for quarterbacks. So I mean, there is, there is an element of like, at the very least, if it's going to be a short term deal, you would think that Baker is. I would have no qualms at all about giving him 50 million a year.

[Sean Pendergast]

No, I wouldn't need it on a

[Seth Payne]

two year deal or something. But on a.

[Sean Pendergast]

The Texans needed a quarterback. I'd give Baker two years, 100 million bucks. Like.

[Seth Payne]

But he also wants, he wants a long term lock in.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Yeah. That's probably his last big bite at the apple, you know what I mean? Like the last chance at a real nice, juicy long term deal. So. All right, that was good. That was compelling audio. All right, top of the hour at 7 o', clock, Seth is going to empty his training camp notebook. If you want to get up to speed on what's been going on out here, be listening at 7 o'. Clock. Be listening in the next segment because we've got headlines. The Astros did nothing yesterday and picked up ground in the AL West. That's the best kind of day. And injury update from the Texans. A wild story involving a Houston Rocket as well that we will get to in headline. All right, let's get to headlines. We've been football heavy in the first hour of the show. So let's get to a little baseball. The Astros were off yesterday. They didn't even need to do anything. And they picked up ground on The Rangers. The Rangers had a 21 lead against the Tampa Bay Rays heading into the back end of that game. The Rays, though, able to hit a couple home runs and win that game. Couple solo home runs. They win the game 3 to 2. The Astros now just a half game back in the division. Who saw this coming? They get swept by the Orioles coming out of the All Star break. We come in on a Monday after that saying this team needs to sell. They just got swept by the Orioles. This is how, this is how you spent your All Star break? Yeah. Getting ready to get swept by the Orioles and now here they are. Since then, they've won eight out of nine. They're a half game back in the division, and they've got the biggest series of the season. The biggest series in quite some time, maybe even going back to last season where they can, they can be in first place by the time they wake up tomorrow morning.

[Seth Payne]

They, you know what they do, Sean? They control their own destiny.

[Sean Pendergast]

They do.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's always where you want to save

[Seth Payne]

it on the text line with all of your, you know, logical arguments against whether you can control your own destiny. But they've existential. They're in the driver's seat. How's that? We accept that they're in the driver's seat. They, they can, they can single handedly without having to worry about anybody else losing or anything. They can take the lead in the division.

[Sean Pendergast]

This is as fun as it gets for a team that has not been a ton of fun in the regular season the last couple of years. Nathan Uvalde against Hunter Brown. Especially with Hunter coming off the last outing that he had. Yeah, no, I mean, Hunter was outstanding in his last.

[Seth Payne]

There's so many things when it comes to guys who are coming off the IL and what is their progress going to be? There is a whole lot of directions you could take with Blanco, with Hunter Brown, Eric Getty and his continued erratics.

[Sean Pendergast]

You know, Wisnetsky's back now too.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the biggest thing, I'm wondering, like at some point if we got to get creative and we got all these, you know, all of a sudden you're having a plethora of pitchers. Imai. Imai's struggles seem to be at this point mostly on the road and he has a hard time adjusting to various mounds. He's had some good performances on the road, but it's only if, if the mound is just right, apparently.

[D'Amico Ryans]

Right.

[Seth Payne]

He's comfortable with the Dyke and Park mound, but if you got to start at least jockeying it around to where Imai can pitch at home.

[D'Amico Ryans]

And.

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, his spot is coming up in the rotation on Sunday and they have not announced the starter yet.

[Seth Payne]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

So this is. This is going to be. One of the interesting sub storylines of the weekend, is just, you know, does Tatsuya Imai get his. Does he get his turn in the rotation?

[Seth Payne]

It's. It's fun, man. If you want, you got Uvalde versus versus Brown tonight. You got deGrom versus Blanco and then TBD on Sunday on both sides.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So should be a whole lot of fun out at Dyke and Park. JP France cut loose by the Astros yesterday, by the way. So he was. He was cut loose.

[Seth Payne]

How'd you guys handle. Because I was on vacation. How'd you guys handle the depressing news of McCullers being cut by the Brewers? Did that happen on.

[Sean Pendergast]

No. It happened while you were gone. Yeah, it happened while you were gone.

[Seth Payne]

Really sad, man.

[Sean Pendergast]

It was set. Well, you know, it was sad. This is. I'll tell you how we handled it. It happened the same day that Dallas Keiko signed a minor league contract with the Oakland, or the. Whatever they are, the A's, the Sacramento A's. So you had. You had two back on. In 2017, they had two pitchers make the All Star team.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Dallas Keiko and Lance McCullers. A decade later, McCullers is getting DFA'd by the brewers and Kykel is signing a minor league deal with the A's. You know, you would think back then, these are your two. These are two guys that are going to be your foundation for however many years. It didn't work out that way.

[Seth Payne]

Kykal got screwed by them changing the strike zone. Yeah, he used to live at the bottom of the strike zone. Then they raised it and boom, there you go.

[Sean Pendergast]

Jake Hanson, injured yesterday here at practice at Texans training camp. Today's day three. Yesterday, Day two. Jake Hansen, linebacker. Injured here was d' Ameco. Ryan's after practice. Giving clarification, Jake went down today.

[D'Amico Ryans]

Jake Hansen went down. Seems to be a foot injury. We don't know the extent of it. Just happened right now. So we. We'll evaluate him and see. See how. How he progresses towards getting back healthy. Okay.

[Sean Pendergast]

I will say this just to set the scene. The optics of what happened didn't look great because it was. He got carted off and it was one of those situations where the entire team, both sidelines, came out to give him the pat on the shoulder kind of thing. Yeah, you had the Whole team gathered around the cart. That never looks good.

[Seth Payne]

It never looks good. But that was the same scene with CJ Gardner Johnson last year. And then there was the report that he was going to be out for the year. And we thought, oh, no, oh no. And then it turned out, no, he's going to be fine. He's going to come back. But wait, he's going to single handedly help you lose your first three games.

[Sean Pendergast]

Not only is he coming back, he's going to come back to torpedo the first month of the season.

[Seth Payne]

What a roller coaster of emotions. Oh, no. C.J. gardner Johnson's out for the year. And then two months later, I was like, oh, it could have helped if he was out for the year.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Yep. So that was the update. That's, that's what went on yesterday here at Texan training camp. Stay tuned. In about 10 minutes, Seth is going to give his detailed breakdown of what we saw on both sides of the ball here in day two of Texans training camp. Boy, this Tar Eason story is crazy. Headline on tmz. Houston Rockets star Tari Eason. My ex poured bleach on my designer clothes.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, no.

[Sean Pendergast]

Tari Eason. And we know that Tar Eason went through it this season. He did not have the season he was hoping for. He was kind of betting on himself. The Rockets made him what people said was a really good offer a year ago, and he said, nope, I'm going to hit restricted free agency. Now we do know this as well. He never hit free agency. The Rockets signed him to a new deal this offseason. Five years, a little over 80 million bucks. So tar Eason got a nice contract. But he is, if you're wondering when he went through that slump in the middle of the season, if he had stuff going on off the court. Yeah, Tar Eason is asking for a domestic violence restraining order against his existence. Telling the court she punched him in the face and destroyed some of his designer clothes with bleach. He filed a petition, which TMZ obtained on Thursday. And he's asking for protection from 32 year old Marilyn Maritza Melo Rodriguez, who he describes as someone he used to date. He claims that one of her friends called him to, quote, tell me she would break both my legs and kill me, end quote. Alleged threats he said made him fear for his life.

[Seth Payne]

Could you just kill me first and then break my legs? At least show a little humanity or something. Make it look worse after the fight,

[Sean Pendergast]

why you gotta torture me?

[Seth Payne]

The quote was, and then she, Marilyn, went Back to his Airbnb where he alleges she, quote, took all my clothes and poured liquid bleach on them, ruining them.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

He claims she caused $92,000 worth of loss.

[Sean Pendergast]

Expensive clothes.

[Seth Payne]

Well, yeah, I don't think he used the word designer clothes. I think that's kind of a boomer phrase. I don't think the kids are out there saying, look at my designer jean.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, right, right, right.

[Seth Payne]

You can tell, you can tell I'm an old person. So. Plus.

[Sean Pendergast]

But the price tag would indicate that they were designer clothes or it was

[Seth Payne]

just a whole lot of clothes.

[Sean Pendergast]

That could be.

[Seth Payne]

It could have been from Costco. But $92,000 worth of Costco clothes worth of clothes. Yeah. This is where, man, this is when it's like it was Stefan Diggs. The. Not that I'm making. Tari, don't listen Tari's mom. I'm not saying he's a direct comparison to Stefan Diggs in any way, shape or form or anything, but man, sometimes you just wonder what's going on in guys lives. Like the stuff that's going on in their personal lives and the choices they make and who they associate with and everything. It's a big deal. And that's why it was Stefon Diggs. I think right now there's a lot of teams that are taking their time and maybe are intrigued by Stefan Diggs.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's not signed yet, but there's just

[Seth Payne]

always so much drama surrounding him and so much of it has to do with the people he associates.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Sounds like this is just a one time thing for Tar Eason. I guess. But it does explain. Do you give him a little bit of grace for the slumpy ad in the middle?

[Seth Payne]

I'm not blaming the alleged victim here with him. No, no. I don't give anybody grace based on stuff that's going on in their personal life. You know, to a certain extent, because that's like the all time greats, you know, Larry Bird, he didn't know who or where his kids were. Like there's a whole lot of Michael Jordan, all kinds of disruption. You compartmentalize.

[Sean Pendergast]

You do. You gotta go out and drop.

[Seth Payne]

Can be a mess. Stefan Diggs, to his credit, does an incredible job of compartmentalizing.

[Sean Pendergast]

He does, he does.

[Seth Payne]

So no, I don't give guys if it's. If it's drama with your, with the women in your life or whatever. Like. Yeah, compartmentalize, man.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep.

[Seth Payne]

Use it to drive you, not distract you.

[Sean Pendergast]

RIP Houston Gamblers. The UFL has decided to move on from Houston as a market, at least for the time being. There will be no Houston gamblers football in Houston next year. The team in the league putting out a statement yesterday, the league acknowledging that, hey, maybe changing their name and changing the venue multiple times and changing a bunch of things as we went along might be on us a little bit. The league said that. So no, if you're a Houston gambler season ticket holder, you will be getting your money back. All right, coming up next, Seth Payne is going to, he's going to empty his old school notebook on the crowd. What did he see at practice yesterday on the offensive side of the ball? Specific positions as well, including the wide receiver room. We will do all of that Here in the 7 o' clock hour live from Texans training camp. That's coming up next. Hey, I, Payne and Pendergast with you. Into the 7 o' clock hour we go Sports Radio 610. We are under two weeks away from our station becoming 95. 7 the fan. So that's exciting.

[Seth Payne]

What?

[Sean Pendergast]

James Litford just walked by and he said, hey boys, congratulations on the new stadium.

[Seth Payne]

He did.

[Sean Pendergast]

He did.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. I acknowledge that he did. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

He listens.

[Seth Payne]

And for anybody that's just, you don't want to get off the AM dial. We'll still be there, but we're going to be on FM95.7 and sports radio

[Sean Pendergast]

610am yeah, it'll be 6. 10 the fan.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep. So that'll be, oh, 610 the fan, 610 the fan. Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Sports radio August 13th.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep. 610 the fan 95 meetings. That's okay. Yeah, you got the high points of it.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. Good.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

So besides, you know what's annoying me now about our company now that the Odyssey, apparently they wrote this new, this new movie called the Odyssey. Brand new concept, never been done before. Yep. But no, now that the Odyssey is out, I wanted to google some stuff about the movie or the original Odyssey. The actual piece of literature.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

But it keeps auto correcting to Odyssey.

[Sean Pendergast]

Your voice to text is putting in your employer.

[Seth Payne]

So I keep in, I'm trying to search for Odyssey the movie and I'm getting info on Mike Meltzer back in 2000 2016. Yeah,

[Sean Pendergast]

well that's, that's the. You know what if that's your employer and that's the thing that annoys you, it could be worse.

[Seth Payne]

Meltzer is in my list of he's in my top two of co hosts that I've had.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh nice.

[Seth Payne]

You're on there.

[Sean Pendergast]

Who's the other One.

[Seth Payne]

You're on there, too.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, that would have sucked.

[Seth Payne]

I've only had two. I'm not some hussy like some people that's had a. Had a boatload of.

[Sean Pendergast]

I've had so many. I. Oh, yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Who knows what I'm picking up?

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, yeah, that's. Yeah. That's why Seth wears a mask to the show every day. Seth's masking up. My co host has been with a lot of other co hosts. All right, so the theme yesterday. Seth, let's get to emptying your notebook here.

[Seth Payne]

The theme for yesterday was that there's a big difference for me between this year and last year, early in training camp, and it's. I've noticed a very different, indistinct absence of an utter lack of. Utter sense of despair. I. I don't have an. I do not have an utter sense of despair about the offense. And I was. I had been saying things a lot. I caught myself saying a lot like, oh, it's a no pads. It's a no pads. What are you gonna. Yeah. I don't know for real until there's no pads. I think a lot of the issues with the offensive line in the last couple years has been as much mental as it's been physical. So the missed assignments, the missed miscommunications, some of those things, whether they're wearing pads or not, you could see that you could pick up on it. You have run throughs by unblocked defensive linemen. That's gotten drastically better so that I don't care whether they're wearing pads or not. It just looks like a better, better functioning unit out there. And then also early in camp last year, people were starting to kind of grumble a little bit about, Like, I don't know about the. What's going on with CJ he does seem as accurate as he usually is. We haven't had those discussions. I haven't had any concerns about it. Like, he's not going to complete 100% of his passes. Nobody does. He's looked like a. He's looked like a competent NFL quarterback. And the offense itself around him looks confident.

[Sean Pendergast]

No, Last year, the ball was hitting the ground in seven on sevens.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

You know, and then yesterday, like, he completes and. I know. I know. NFL football is 11 on 11.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

I'm saying, like, the basic things. The basic baseline. He is hitting and overachieving now.

[Seth Payne]

You know, yesterday, we got to go over. They let us. They walked us around the. We had to walk the entire perimeter to get over to the back corner,

[Sean Pendergast]

it looked like a lot of work.

[Seth Payne]

They don't want to met. This grass is pristine. They don't want to mess this up.

[Sean Pendergast]

I get it.

[Seth Payne]

With us in our tennis shoes, you know. Yeah. Meanwhile, I got 300 pounders. No, but it's fun watching Cole Popovich work because, because, you know, d'. Amico. D' Amico doesn't like his coaches to be all, you know, he wants them to be like modern, you know, don't, don't be a bastard when you're talking to your players.

[Sean Pendergast]

He said that yesterday. He said the reason our coaches can coach hard is because they connect with our guys as people.

[Seth Payne]

Right, right, right, right. But Popovich is like, Popovich is like the movie version of an offensive line.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's the closest to the old school.

[Seth Payne]

He is aggressive, you know, and like every coach, like d' Amico always has a couple guys on his staff that like, all right, they, they get away with doing what they want to do, you know, because they're, they're really good and effective at it. And the, the old lineman, it like. Popovich is very brusque, but more so than any O line coach I can remember with the Texans. The players gush about him. Yeah. Like they, they love them. Like, yeah, you can tell that Popovich. There's some coaches that coach that way and they're just bastards deep in their soul.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Like, there's some coaches that coach that way, but the players respond to it and like it because they know the guys actually cares about him.

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, and I think this goes back to, to the types of guys they bring in, you know, d' Ameco and Nick d', Amico, Ryan's Nick Casario, they're pretty meticulous about finding their types of guys. And I think one of the boxes that they check on their types of guys is can they take hard coaching?

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Do they like being coached? You know, do they like being held accountable? That's what's happening over at that position.

[Seth Payne]

You know, that's. It reminds me a little bit of Alex Gibbs Sr. Back when he was, you know, the O line coach that first really brought. Helped bring competent offense to the Texans. He was kind of a brusque, old school type of guy. And it didn't matter if you were. If you're a 10 year veteran, it was the highest played guy in the league. He's going to, he's going to, he's going to let you know exactly what you need to work on. So the offensive line in general, my overall Takeaway is that they're, they're much more dialed in mentally, so they're not wearing pads. All right, cool. You're not, there's some things you're just not going to know until they, until they, until they get out there in pads. But they didn't even have a chance to lose a physical battle last year. Like they were, like the guys weren't close enough to get beaten physically because they took two steps in the wrong direction. That's improved drastically not just from last training camp, but really from the first half of last season. It just looks a lot tighter mentally.

[Sean Pendergast]

So here was d'. Ameco, Ryan's that, yeah, it's looked better. And d' Ameco still, though, I love this. Like he was still, he was still in the press conference yesterday kind of harping on the things that need to improve with this offense. He said the offense maybe went a little bit backwards in day two.

[D'Amico Ryans]

The one thing that stood out to me is, you know, we gotta, we had some poor pre snap penalties. We kind of went backwards offensively. So those are some things that stood out where we can clean those things up defensively, we gotta finish on the football better. Had a couple opportunities to take the football away and we did it. So both sides right there got things we can clean up on. Come back tomorrow.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. And I think, you know, when d' Ameco brought that up, I really, I think he was thinking specifically about one period and as it relates to the ones, the first offense, first team offense, it was really just one set of downs where Keelan Rutledge had a fumbled QB center snap exchange. CJ was under center. Then there was a run that went nowhere. Then there was a pre snap penalty. That was the first pre snap penalty that I had noticed from the ones. So it was, it was conspicuous because that was the only really ugly period that we'd seen the Texans have. And by and large it looked worse than it did the first day because there were any issues at all. I guess the other part that I wonder about is did they add some complexity to the mix? That's where the, that's when things start going wrong, is when you're adding complexity to it. Are you adding some checks where you using some more motion? Like that's, that's where you start.

[Sean Pendergast]

This is where, this is where you're allowed to let it go wrong. Best to go wrong in day two of training camp than go wrong in week one against the Buffalo Bills.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, like by and large it's been really, really Clean. And the O line and the tight ends, especially in their blocking, it's just, it's, it's been very clean and the pre snap parts been very clean. Clean.

[Sean Pendergast]

The running backs have gotten a lot of compliments out here from people. Yko was gushing about Woody Marks yesterday.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, and I think the biggest thing I've noticed with the running backs, two things really is one, when they're running their zone runs especially, man, if you compare it to Damian Pierce trying to get straightened out and figure out zone runs in the NFL, man, it just looked, it looked sluggish. It looked like he was hesitant to make his reads. You don't see any of that with Montgomery or Woody Marks or even George Jordan. Yeah, they're. They're hitting their, they're hitting their reads and taking that one cut and getting up field really quickly. That's good to see. The, the other thing is that, and this is similar to something we saw last year, but they're getting the running backs involved in the passing game a lot. And it's, and it's in both different aspects of it. There's one, there's some design throws to the quarter to the running backs. There's been some screens that are well executed by the offensive line. But then also just CJ early in the down, especially if it's first or second down, seeing like, all right, I don't like this coverage. Get it to the running back now. Get it to the running back when he's got some time to work and do something with it. And CJ Made progress with that last year, but it's an, it's an ongoing process.

[Sean Pendergast]

David Montgomery's been a nice, I think, for people who, you know, haven't watched David Montgomery, he's done some nice things in the passing game these first couple practices. He can catch the ball out of the backfield, I think. I think, and I know you point this out in the rundown. This is something I've mentioned a couple times too, as we've headed into training camp, is using packages where Woody Marks and David Montgomery are out there at the same time. Yeah, the skill set that both of those guys have give you a real luxury because Woody Marks is ahead of the curve as far as young players go and being able to do everything that allows you to be out there. He's very good in pass pro. He's very smart. Montgomery's been around forever, so we know he's going to be proficient in those things. The fact that they both have kind of a complete all around Skill set, really, if they're both out there, there's a lot of mystery that you can provide for the defense. You know, you can keep the defense off balance with the two of them.

[Seth Payne]

And I think the one thing about Woody Marks that, you know, a lot of people nationally might not realize because they weren't, you know, the Texans weren't much of a talking point in the first half of the season until they righted the ship from their own three start.

[Baker Mayfield]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Was that when Woody Marks became the number one back? They stopped, you know, working him in as a receiver as much, and the focus was in just getting him dialed in in the run game. But yes, obviously he's as adept as a receiver, but he's also adept as a pass protector. So with, by rookie standards, he was really good. Like, he was aggressive, he cared about it, he was smart. And that's going to be better this year. But what that does for the offense is, look, you got a young rookie running back or a second year running back who's adept as a receiver, but he can't pass block. It makes it real easy for the defense to know what to worry about. When he's actually adept as a pass protector, then all of a sudden, all right, we don't know exactly should we blitz? And we know we got a guy in there that can help pick up the blitz or Woody can make those decisions. That part of it is really intriguing for Woody Marks.

[Sean Pendergast]

What has stood out to you with the receiving core so far?

[Seth Payne]

J.R. higgins, okay, has stood out Jaden Higgins in both practices, right, because he had a really nice catch. He had a nice catch and run. It's always hard to tell. Okay, would he have, you know, would Jaylen Petrie have made a tackle or would he have broken it or whatever on the first day? But yesterday, the first, the first catchy, the first pass he caught from CJ was just a beautifully placed ball on the sideline. I don't know if it was a toe tapper or not, but he had to catch it pretty much going, you know, at high speed, out of bounds. And I think for everything that they want out of him and the ability to move him around, use him in the slot. I wouldn't have brought this up because we're not supposed to talk about formations a whole lot, but d' Ameco ended up bringing it up yesterday. Yeah, like we're moving around, we're putting him inside and like he can be that movable chess piece and he's going to be a lot smarter in his Second year in this offense.

[Sean Pendergast]

We've got that right here. Here's d'. Ameco. Ryan's talking about Jaden Higgins.

[D'Amico Ryans]

Jaden, I put him in the same category. Woody, he's taking that Year two jump. You're seeing a guy who we're able to move around the formation a little bit more, get him inside the formation. He's making some plays just everywhere we put him. My first play of practice today, runners, a great route. CJ gives him a great ball, just shows his growth, shows a guy you can rely on, guy you can count on, you know, in those current situations. And we're going to need him. We need a guy to step up opposite Nico and be a threat and JW can be that guy for us.

[Sean Pendergast]

And I think we can't overstate this, that this time last year, the inability for CJ Stroud to get on the same page, really with both rookie wide receivers last year, both their second year guys now, Jaden Higgins and Jalen Noel. It was tough sledding early on, you know, just the, the, the precision was not there between the two.

[Seth Payne]

And I think too with, you know, last year when there were concerns about CJ's accuracy in training camp, a lot of that at times was just receivers not being in the right spot.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right.

[Seth Payne]

You know, there's some nice, there are some really nice passes. CJ had some curious incompletions last year, but he also had some passes that were actually placed exactly where the receiver should have been. But when it was a rookie or somebody that wasn't quite up to speed on the offense, it looks like an inaccurate pass. We haven't seen as nearly as much of that this year. He threw a really nice pass to Xavier Hutchinson, who was in tight coverage by Jalen Petrie. The other guys that have shown up or the other guy that's shown up a lot from multiple different quarterbacks is Justin Watson.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes.

[Seth Payne]

So like the, the back end of the wide receiver depth chart is going to be super competitive. Louis Bonds made a couple nice plays.

[D'Amico Ryans]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

It'll be interesting because we know, we know Nico Higgins, Noel are all making the teams. I think Xavier Hutchinson is probably too. Tank Dell's a mystery right now. That's five. Typically, I think they take six. So yeah, Justin Watson, Lewis Bond, the six rounder, you know that that's, there's some, there's some good competition at the back end of that room.

[Seth Payne]

The other guy that keeps showing up with multiple different quarterbacks too is Brevin Jordan.

[D'Amico Ryans]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

And I guess you know Tell the

[Sean Pendergast]

people what you're seeing with Brevin Jordan.

[Seth Payne]

Brevin was, for one in the boot. Game was really good yesterday. There was a play where Davis Mills had to scramble and extend the play, and I think it was an honest scramble. It wasn't. It wasn't like, you know, he would have been sacked or training camp scramble, but he was.

[D'Amico Ryans]

He was.

[Seth Payne]

He was rolling out to the right and ended up hitting. Hitting Brevin Jordan with a nice pass. And Brevin Jordan made a nice catch, but he's been. He just keeps showing up. There was one.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's the one in the end zone.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, that was.

[Sean Pendergast]

That was nice.

[Seth Payne]

There was one where he was running down the seam and he didn't pull the ball in, but he was open. It was a high pass from Davis Mills. And, you know, without the benefit of replay or anything, I don't know whether I blame Davis or Brevin Jordan on that or both. I think it was probably catchable, but I'm more interested in the fact that he was open down the seam in there, too.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

So, like, yeah, he's gonna make it interesting. He's got a different skill set than Cade Stover and really, the rest. He's got a different skill set than any of the other tight ends and does. But just to keep four tight ends on a roster, that's the. That's not typical in the NFL.

[Sean Pendergast]

You played defensive tackle for 10 years in the NFL. The Texans drafted a defensive tackle in the second round, Kaden McDonald. So we're getting our first look at him. If we flip over to the defensive side of the ball before we get your thoughts on what you're seeing out of Kaden McDonald, who's an important player for this team this season and a very important player for this team over the next few years. Here was D' Amico Ryan's yesterday when he was asked, How's Kaden McDonald looking so far?

[D'Amico Ryans]

Kaden is really. Show how strong he is. He's probably one of the stronger guys that we have. You see him doing drills. He's knocking the coaches back a lot. Coaches are trying to hold bags and be tough guys, but Caden is doing a great job of showing the strength that he has now. Can he pull it all in? And can you consistently play with the proper hand placement, the proper footwork, every single row?

[Sean Pendergast]

All right, give us the early scouting report.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, like, no. He is incredibly strong, and he's big and he's powerful. He is like. Like, he's physically exactly what he got Drafted for. What they're really working on him with right now is his hand placement and just firing off and firing off straight ahead. This is very, very normal for a big guy that's trying to work on his technique. He'll come out of his stance and he's throwing his hands, but he's doing it, like straight up in the air, which is awesome. If you're trying to punch out Glass Joe.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Remember when you hit Glass Joe with the undercut.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, dude, he was toast.

[Seth Payne]

Right?

[Sean Pendergast]

Right.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, he would knock out Glass Joe in three on. Kids.

[Sean Pendergast]

Mike Tyson's punch out was this game back in the day.

[Seth Payne]

I know, but it's hard. Like, when you're working on this stuff, you know, you can see that he's really working at it. The first couple days, I've impressed with his eagerness to be coached with the effort that he's putting in there. He's asking for extra reps, and I think it's all there. I'd really. I can't judge him until they get the pads like him and Keelan Rutledge both. It's going to be fun to watch those two going against each other.

[Mark Vandermeer]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Because they're both big, strong, powerful guys that need to refine their technique. But he's. So far, everything I've seen out of Caden McDonald matches what the scouting report would have said of him. I don't like you're. I don't think he's going to get 10 sacks as rookie or anything. He can develop into a guy. I think he will get push in the pocket. And if you look at the Texans defensive tackles, they do a really good job of kind of unselfishly at times, not. Not giving themselves a chance to get a sack because they're just. They know that their first goal is to push the pocket. And then for defensive tackles, if you're not Warren Sapp or J.J. watt or somebody, it's dicey. When you get to that spot where you push the pocket and then you decide to try to try to disengage and get past because you create a running lane. The Texans guys like Tim Settle and Tommy Toye last year, they do a really good job of pushing and then understanding, okay, I gotta wait and see where the quarterback's going. McDonald will be really good at that initially already just because of his size and strength.

[Sean Pendergast]

You know how he set very high goals for himself. Kaden McDonald. He wants to be first team all probably he wants to be defensive rookie of the year. I don't know if this is on his list of accolades he's looking for, but he is on Gennaro Felice of NFL.com's preseason All Rookie team.

[Ad Read / Announcer]

Ah.

[Sean Pendergast]

So that's one accolade right there.

[Seth Payne]

I think the. It's tough on the. With the Texans because they rotate their defensive linemen so much. And I think he's initially going to be a guy that is in there on first and second down. I liked what Will Anderson said a couple of days ago about his goals are all about, you know, where he wants to get better his technique and everything and not worry about the outside stuff because you don't have a lot of control over the outside stuff and what the voters do or anything. And Will is kind of taking Caden under his wing, so I'm guessing he's having some conversations with him about like, hey, look, man, you could have the. See, for what this team is asking you to do, you could be the best defensive tackle of all time, but you have zero control over whether or not you're going to be first.

[Sean Pendergast]

No, the old Kaden McDonald is good for radio. When he walks by here, I'm going to pick up my iPad and show him like, hey, Kaden, did you see you made the first team preseason all rookie?

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Stop listening to Will Anderson. Listen to Sean Pendergast.

[Seth Payne]

You're a loser. Yeah, yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

You could be a radio host someday if you listen to me, Kaden, I know you could make millions of dollars being a defensive tackle, but if you keep saying bombastic things that wind up on the radio, you too can be a hot take artist.

[Seth Payne]

The other thing was, you know, Solomon Bird flashed a few times yesterday and he's a guy that in the third year of his career. And he's got a chance here now with both Derek Barnett and Danico Autry gone, he's got a chance to make the active roster more consistent at a position of need.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, you've been saying that the depth at defensive, at defensive end Will Anderson in the.

[Seth Payne]

They were just. It wasn't one on one pass rush. They were just doing pass rush drills versus dummies. But he did that little Daniel Hunter hop stuff.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. You took a video of it that should terrify the other 31 teams.

[Seth Payne]

It was awesome.

[Sean Pendergast]

Will is adding moves.

[Seth Payne]

Beautiful. People accused me of speeding it up. Speeding up the video. No, I said no. Listen to the audio. You can hear Rod Wright's voice on there, just speaking at his normal.

[Sean Pendergast]

Will Anderson is speeding that video up. Yeah, he's the one doing it.

[Seth Payne]

He's adding to his repertoire.

[Sean Pendergast]

Hey, last thing as we empty out Seth Payne's training camp notebook. We've not talked much about Logan hall and as long as we're talking about positions of need and versatility and whatnot, his ability to play outside or inside may wind up being big.

[Seth Payne]

He is a tall glass of water. Logan Hall. Cougs will remember this and I talked to Matt Burke a little bit after practice yesterday and Burke was talking about how he's he liked Logan hall coming.

[Sean Pendergast]

Did you guys compare beards?

[Seth Payne]

Huh?

[Sean Pendergast]

Did you compare beards?

[Seth Payne]

He's trimmed down his a little bit. He's a little too well manicured, frankly.

[Sean Pendergast]

So you're the Grizzly Adams of this duo.

[Seth Payne]

Well, he's trimmed down too. He's lost some weight. Looks good. I was like, man, I was, I was gonna, you need to let your beard go a little bit. Get on my gain about £20 or so. Yeah, but he liked Logan hall coming out of college and that I think his versatility and his ability to play inside or outside is going to be something that they, they can use on a game plan by game plan basis. When they first signed him to Amico, it said they're going to start him off on the inside and that makes sense given the scheme that he came out of. They're going to be asking him to do some things at defensive tackle that are different than a lot of what he did in Tampa playing. He can go out and play end on this team and it's going to feel like no big deal at all. So I think a lot of the work is going to be on the inside early on in camp. But he could easily in any given game be playing mostly defensive end or mostly defensive tackle. And he's an impressive looking dude.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep. So that's Seth emptying out the notebook, getting you up to speed in a big, big detailed way on what's going on out here at training camp. Let's shift gears for a minute and just take a look inside the AFC South. I would say probably the biggest news involving a non Texans team in the division is the fact that it looks like Daniel Jones is a full go area. He is a full go for training camp. This is Daniel Jones earlier this week confirming that. Yeah, I'm feeling good. Feeling good. I think, yeah. Plan is to be back in 11, 11 full team drills tomorrow or Wednesday when we start up practice. So be out there with the guys. Excited to get back back rolling but feeling good and rehab's been good to this point. Still some work to do as we get ready for week one. But feeling really good with where I am.

[Seth Payne]

Alright, you know what? This is annoying me now. Can we cool it down a little bit on the Achilles tendons injury being so easy to come back from these days? The reports out of Colts camp are that he looks mobile. He looks like pre injury Daniel Jones. He's on rollouts and everything. Just looks like it's no big deal. Look, this used to be a death blow. I don't think we can even use Achilles heel as a metaphor anymore. What's my Achilles heel? Oh, you mean that thing that might be a minor setback surgery from and

[Sean Pendergast]

I'll be back in three weeks.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is. But Daniel Jones reportedly so far very early in camp looks like it's this Achilles tendon is no big deal.

[Sean Pendergast]

Daniel Jones doesn't scare me, man. I know they were great the first eight or nine games of the season. Last year he was on an MVP track. Daniel Jones is a little like Trevor Lawrence to me. You know, they've been. They're somewhat similar in that they've had these flashes of play. Yeah, they get them paid, right? They get them paid. But Trevor Lawrence is a guy who's played way more bad football than good football. The league has figured him out one time before after a supposed season where he was making the leap.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

And Daniel Jones, same thing. He had that big season back in 2022 like just like Trevor Lawrence did in 20. There was the same season in 2022. He was with the Giants. Daniel Jones was. We just seen this from them before.

[Seth Payne]

I'll quote Calum Bullock who last year on Good Morning Football said we got to stop the run. That's their whole offense. The whole offense goes through Jonathan Taylor. He's the best back this year. Once you stop him, we feel like the offense don't have nothing else.

[Sean Pendergast]

I think that's good analysis by Kalen Bullock.

[Seth Payne]

You know, and that's where when I think Shane Steichen has done a really good job getting the most out of guys like Gardner Minshew. And he does, he'll mix in the rpo. He does a whole lot of misdirection and things that keep a defense off balance. But you can only do so much of that before it's all on film. And you know what the little tricks are to try to cover up his weaknesses. And by and large, if you stop Jonathan Taylor, it makes it really difficult. If you stop Jonathan Taylor, Daniel Jones turns back into the goofy eyed pumpkin.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes.

[Seth Payne]

You know, a pumpkin that looks. Looks lost and confused, pumpkin.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes, he's a goofy eyed pumpkin. Here's Chris Ballard, the GM of the Indianapolis Colts. He was at, I guess he's in the last year of his contract and was asked about doing a contract extension with the Colts. Here's what he had to say. No, no, I wouldn't do one. I'm in the last year of my deal.

[D'Amico Ryans]

We need to win.

[Sean Pendergast]

We need to win. Okay.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, that's a. You know, that's some self awareness. You need to win a. You need to make the playoffs or win a playoff game.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's. When you look at the body of work of the Colts over the last decade, he got there in 2017 or 2018, around there about the same time Frank Reich got there. It's incredible that he's lasted as long as he has at the G as the gm that they've won one playoff game and it was right across the street here at NRG stadium back in 2018. Yeah. And it's almost like he got a pass for a few years after Andrew Lucky up and retired unexpectedly. That was in 2019.

[Seth Payne]

Sean. They haven't. They have before, COVID Sean, they haven't. Guess when the last time they won the division was.

[Sean Pendergast]

2021. I think they won the division.

[Seth Payne]

2014.

[Sean Pendergast]

20. Okay. 2021. They made the playoffs.

[Seth Payne]

They made the playoffs with the nine and eight record. Second that year.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the Carson Wentz year.

[Seth Payne]

Like they used to own this division. They did, you know.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, it was back in the early days.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. 2000. 2014 was the last time they won the division. Wow.

[Sean Pendergast]

And I'm in the play. Last playoff game they won was here. Right? They haven't won a playoff game since 2018.

[Seth Payne]

They lost the wild card game in 2020.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay. So they. Yeah, so they lost the wild card game. So last one they won was here. Yeah. So Chris Ballard will not do an extension. Okay. So if they offer. You telling me, Chris Ballard, they offer you a multi year extension for tens of millions of dollars, you're going to say no because you got to win this year.

[D'Amico Ryans]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Sorry. You were right, by the way. I was? You were. The last one they won was in 2021.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Seth Payne]

But they won that. They made the playoffs in 2020, but they didn't win a game.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep. All right, Payne and Pendergast with you on a. On a Friday here. Let's shift gears over the Astros for a little bit. All right, so The Astros are 55 and 55. They are back to.500. They're a half game out in this horrible division that they're in. Yeah, 55 and 55 in late July gets you a half game out of first place. Okay. So as we handicap the. As we handicap Monday, which is the trade deadline. Trade deadline is 5 o' clock Monday afternoon. I think the chances of them making a deal that is a seller's deal is practically 0%. I think there's a 0% chance that the Astros are going to be trading a foundational everyday player or a pitcher in their rotation or a key bullpen piece to another team. Everybody who fits that description right now is going to be on this team come August 4th, the day after the trade deadline. Yeah, I feel strongly about that. So I think they're either in buy or hold mode right now.

[Seth Payne]

Right, right. And this is where I, I don't. I'm trying to examine myself and see if. Ask if I'm just being a punk or if I'm just being too passive about this. I would be totally comfortable with a hold mode with the philosophy that, man, these guys who are either coming off the IL over the last month and or, you know, coming back into form. The way that Pena has been playing specifically has just been a revelation that it doesn't feel like a typical. It wouldn't have felt like in 2017 when, you know, Kaiko was PO'd, that they didn't make a move at the trade deadline because there are a lot of things that have just happened organically on this team that make them a better baseball team than they were in the first couple months of the season.

[Sean Pendergast]

There are. And, well, the fact of the matter is, too, they're just not a good enough baseball team for anybody to be. Anybody in the clubhouse to be complaining about them not making trades like Kaikal when Kykal did that, they were in first place. You could tell they were on pace to go in 100 games that year. So, you know, the front office is going to do what they're going to do. Look, Jim Crane is somebody who has a history of making at least some moves anywhere from somewhat aggressive to very aggressive moves. Here is. Here's Ken Rosenthal earlier this week of Fox and of MLB TV saying that the Houston Astros are the cockroaches of baseball.

[Seth Payne]

The Astros are the cockroaches of baseball. They have won five of six, and as Chandler Rome writes today in the Athletic, they're not going to sell. There have been all these stories about them selling early on, Jordan Alvarez and more recently Josh Hader and Jeremy Pena. No, not happening. Was never going to happen.

[Sean Pendergast]

All right, so it was never going to happen. The Jordan thing, I believe, was never going to happen. Painting, I think so, too. Painting, I think, is a little more nuanced situation just given his contract.

[Seth Payne]

Was there even any actual. The Jordan thing? He's acting like the Yordon stuff was never going to happen. Like, I don't know what. I don't think anybody really was saying that the Yordan thing was going to happen.

[Sean Pendergast]

No, it was. That was all people on his network doing hypothetical. Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

I think is tearing down a straw man.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Beating the crap out of that straw man.

[Sean Pendergast]

Or stupid co workers that were trying to get Jordan Alvarez up and out of here.

[D'Amico Ryans]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. So. So I think if I had a guess, I would say there's. There's going to be a deal made. Just because there's always a deal made with the Astros.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

To me, it's just got to be. And they used to do this back when Luna was the gm, too. I mean, there was, you know, Kyle Tucker was untouchable in trade talks back when Kyle Tucker was a prospect.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

They need to have a hard freeze on, you know, the tippy top prospects, and most of those guys are down in a ball right now. Like, it's the. It's the lower, lower levels of the minor league system that people are getting excited about with the Astros. So it's so weird, though, the starting pitching, because they've got like eight guys that at various times this year have done things where you go, okay, he could. Imai's a perfect example. There was a few weeks ago where I was saying to you after Imai had a few good starts, he's their number two guy behind Honor Brown. Yeah. Now here we are. And now here we are.

[Seth Payne]

There's a time where Mike Burroughs was going to be the guy.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

I mean, there was a time when, you know, Peter Lambert was DFA'd, because we got all these other guys.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's your number two starter right now.

[Seth Payne]

Look at all these other guys. Why would we keep Peter Lambert around? Well, we were.

[Sean Pendergast]

We were. I can't remember if it was when you were out or. I just remember having a conversation with somebody like, what would. If they make the wild Card round, what does the pitching situation look like? And the first, it's two out of three. So the first two games are easy. Hunter Brown's your one and Peter Lambert's your two. Based on where we sit right now, like, if the series had to take place tomorrow. So if they split those first two games, then who's number three? And the answer is everybody. I think you just do a bullpen game in number three. You throw Christian Javier out there to start the game, and if he shows any signs that the invisible is not working or he's putting guys on base, you're in. Now, Eric, Eddie, or whoever it is, you know, it's like, I think that's. If you had to play a wild card round series starting this Monday, I think that's what they would do. It's Hunter Brown, it's Peter Lambert, and then who the hell knows what unless they make a trade for a pitcher. And the Athletic has a big board of the top 60 trade targets. They've got the Astros listed in the top three possibilities for no fewer than about 10 different starting pitchers of various levels. Not probably the best or at least the biggest name they've got. The Astros being in for would be Sandy Alcantara of the Miami Marlins, who started to pitch like the Cy Young guy that he is lately. Like, they don't have him in there for school ball or Joe Ryan from Minnesota, but they've got the Astros on that big board listed as one of three teams for a slew of starting pitchers. Yeah, so I think that's if we see something, it'll be for like a back end of the rotation type starting pitch. But it's a big weekend, man. Big weekend. I think they could get swept by the Rangers and still be buying on Monday. That's how that, that's. That's how motivated I think they are. All right, coming up next. Oh, we haven't gotten to this yet. The, the biggest story so far in the offseason leading into the college football season is one of the, one of the funnier stories, especially when you hear people talk about this guy who just got put on administrative leave. We've not touched on this story on the show.

[Seth Payne]

We need to do that. This guy relationship with a lot of current Texan staff.

[Sean Pendergast]

Indeed. Yes, yes. Six degrees of the New England Patriots. We'll do that coming up. All right, final segment. We'll hand things over to John Harris and Mark Vandermeer, day three of training camp. We'll hear from Jalen Petrie in just a little bit as well. What's been going on on the defensive side of the ball through his eyes. We've not talked about this Michael Lombardi story yet this week.

[Seth Payne]

The GM of unc, well, the currently

[Sean Pendergast]

administrative lead GM of UNC still technically

[Seth Payne]

the GM of UNC football.

[Sean Pendergast]

He is. He was presumably still getting a job.

[Seth Payne]

Highest paid GM in college football. $1.5 million.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Yeah. And according to Bruce Feldman, the worst general manager, not just in college football.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

But across collegiate sports. This is Bruce Feldman of both Fox and the Athletic on his podcast, if you missed it, Michael Lombardi's in place, not administrative leave, for a reported HR issue. There's also issues with that clearinghouse the NCAA's created for nil deals that he's in the crosshairs with as well. So he's got stuff going on with the nil, and he's got stuff going on, it seems like, inside the building at North Carolina.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. So I don't know what the HR issue is. I don't know. I haven't, like, fact checked this at all, but at least one person who was doing some sleuthing said that Lombardi had. He had liked a thirst trap photo on Instagram.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, okay.

[Seth Payne]

So maybe this is a little bit of an indicator.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay.

[Seth Payne]

We don't know. We don't know.

[Sean Pendergast]

We don't know. The school has spoken on.

[Seth Payne]

I would advise for anybody who's working in academia, including just, you know, sports at a college department is. Don't. Don't do that.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes. Here's the statement the school put out yesterday. This is courtesy of Bruce Feldman, who we're going to hear from in a second. As a result of concerns beyond allegations that led to the personnel action regarding Michael Lombardi announced on July 27, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, through its Office of University Council, is in the process of investigating this matter. Because this involves confidential personnel issues, the university will not comment on the nature of the allegations or discuss personnel information. So they're basically saying, we ain't saying nothing. There's something going on. We ain't saying nothing. Bruce Feldman says they ain't gonna miss the guy that much. He's the worst at his job in all of collegiate sports.

[Mark Vandermeer]

You are being very kind. He is without question the worst general manager in college sports.

[Seth Payne]

Also the highest.

[Mark Vandermeer]

Not even close. He should be getting his paycheck with a ski mask on. I'm sorry. He, like, this is such a staggering amount of ineptitude in the job he's had for Bill Belichick. Right. And, you know, I go back to this big story we did last year, and he was a focal point of it. It's the arrog, it's the abrasiveness. I mean, there's a lot of qualities that have rubbed people the wrong way for a long time. But Bill Belichick has been one of the people who has been in his corner and always. And the fact that Bill Belichick trusted him to have the most important job of anybody he could hire, and it has blown up in his face and North Carolina's face spectacularly.

[Sean Pendergast]

This is one of the strangest blind spots of any highly competent person that I can think of in sports. I think with Bill Belichick's Michael Lombardi

[Seth Payne]

fetish, he's had him just in various place with the Browns and with the Patriots. And when Lombardi, you know, was. Didn't get any more chances at GM anymore, he was like always in some weird position with the Patriots where he was almost like a football. I think he was like a football historian because he knows a lot of stuff. He's like one of those old school football sports nerds that can just pull up all kinds of random data and everything in his brain. I think, I think Belichick liked having him around just to tell him stories or he was, he was like the little fella in Game of Thrones there.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, Tyrion.

[Seth Payne]

Tyrion, yeah, he was like Tyrion. He might not actually be all that competent, but he knows, he knows things. And, but, but Belichick going to unc, you get this sense that there was this level of arrogance there. Like Belichick had a well earned arrogance in the NFL. Like, all right, yeah, yep. What are we going to do? Argue with you? But all these stories, it sounds like they got to UNC and acted like, wow, we're going to show you guys how it's done with zero regard for all of the difficulties and intricacies of college recruiting, working with young people, not to mention the rules and regulations and all of that. They just looked wholly unprepared for it. And meanwhile, Belichick's got, got his much younger girlfriend running around in charge of stuff. He's hiring every family member he can to his staff. I get just.

[Sean Pendergast]

I don't want it to end. Yeah, I don't want it to end. It's such a train wreck.

[Seth Payne]

They gotta, they gotta beat somebody other than an FCS team this year if you want that to happen. 10 million a year. 10 million a year. They're paying for this.

[Sean Pendergast]

A million.

[Seth Payne]

Michael, who's been more of an extreme flame out so far? Urban Meyer going to the NFL or Bill Belichick going to college?

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, boy, that's a good one. That's a good one.

[Seth Payne]

I like both of those guys because what I've Long maintained is that look, and this is one of the reasons it's so hard to evaluate college quarterbacks. They're two different sports. They are different sports. It might as well be cricket and baseball. They've got a lot of similarities. But man, the differences in the college game are so much different. And then when you factor in all of the transfer portal and nil and everything else that goes into it, it's not just so simple that, you know, it's like an IndyCar driver. If all of a sudden he jumps into a stock car, he's not going to be the best stock car driver in the world all of a sudden. There's a lot of differences.

[Sean Pendergast]

This is your question you asked me about who's the bigger flame out, Urban Meyer with Jacksonville or Bill Belichick with North Carolina? I am going to dig into that this weekend because it's a great question. My gut tells me that it's Urban Meyer and it might not even be that close. Yeah, Urban Meyer didn't make it through the full season. Urban Meyer tried to bring in Tim Tebow. Urban Meyer. From all accounts, it seems like the kids at North Carolina actually kind of enjoy playing for Belichick there. It didn't seem like the Jaguars enjoyed all that much playing for Urban Meyer.

[Seth Payne]

Well, and Belichick has made it through a full year. Urban Meyer, yeah. That's the biggest difference.

[Sean Pendergast]

Urban Meyer the had all off the field stuff too. He didn't fly home with the team right after a Thursday night game so he could stay in Ohio, go to Columbus and start and get a lap

[Seth Payne]

dance from a work associate.

[Sean Pendergast]

Feeling up a work.

[Seth Payne]

She was more feeling him up, but he wasn't stopping.

[Sean Pendergast]

I don't know. She was sitting on.

[Seth Payne]

His hands were to the side. He was following. He was acting like he was at a club and he had to follow the rules.

[Sean Pendergast]

Go back and look at the replay. I. I don't. Yeah, yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Either was more of like grinding up against him right as he was sitting on the that tall chair.

[Sean Pendergast]

He wasn't saying no. Yeah, he wasn't saying no.

[Seth Payne]

But no, I think the, that whole dynamic of Belichick thinking that he was going to come in and just show everybody how it's done. That rubs a lot of people the wrong way.

[Sean Pendergast]

Michael Lombardi said we're the 33rd NFL team.

[Seth Payne]

Right. And they would go on to have zero players drafted to the NFL.

[Sean Pendergast]

Exactly. Right.

[Seth Payne]

Nobody was having a discussion about like, hey, could Unc beat the Browns?

[D'Amico Ryans]

Right.

[Seth Payne]

What do you think? You guys think Unc could Beat the Browns.

[Sean Pendergast]

And if you instead think we're being over the top or extreme, just know. Go Google it. Every year, there's somebody that says Georgia could be the worst team in the NFL. Somebody says it. It's not true. They couldn't.

[Seth Payne]

We haven't had this discussion with UNC.

[D'Amico Ryans]

No.

[Sean Pendergast]

No.

[Seth Payne]

Despite them being the 33rd team, they're on the.

[Sean Pendergast]

They're on the other end. They're like, could molar high school in Cincinnati beat North Carolina.

[Seth Payne]

You know what? One of the things about Belichick book that I didn't like and I enjoyed his book, I thought. I thought I really liked a lot of the parts of Belichick's book, but I could see the fingerprints of Michael Lombardi in the book, because there were times where it was kind of like, you know, Belichick's telling some cool stories, talking about film, you know, building a team and all of that and a culture. But then here and there, there'd be sprinkled in like, hey, actually, this is a business advice book. Or at the end of one chapter, it was like, so for young people looking for a job or whatever, I'm like, oh, that's Lombardi. Lombardi had a talk with him about, like, hey, if you want to make this marketable to the masses, you got to be able to. Yeah. Turn it into a keynote presentation to a Fortune 500 company.

[Ad Read / Announcer]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

You're talking to C level sweet people out there. All right, so we got about a minute or so to go here.

[Seth Payne]

No.

[Sean Pendergast]

To get our game face back on before day three of practice. Here's Jalen Petrie yesterday talking about this defense is about precision and swarming. From the first play we step out there in a preseason game, it's about pure execution and energy. Like, are we swarming or not? It's really black and white with us, black and white with coach d'. Amico. And, yeah, it's one standard. So if we're not living up to it, it's going to be known, and we got to get it fixed. All right, see, that's the motivational speech I need before we get out here today, Seth. We are all about precision and swarming. When we cover day three of practice and day four tomorrow, you know, there's

[Seth Payne]

practice tomorrow, there's practice tomorrow morning, 9am and then there's no practice. Isn't the one. Tomorrow's open to the public.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes. First one.

[D'Amico Ryans]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. Yeah. If you got tickets out, tickets for tomorrow's practice, and you see us out here. Be sure to wave and say hello.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. If you see Sean, grab him.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, grab me.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, grab him and take a selfie.

[Sean Pendergast]

Grab me and hug me and. Yeah, let's take a selfie together. That'll be fun.

[Seth Payne]

You guys are in for a good show because Vandermeer is either praying or he's deep in contemplation.

[D'Amico Ryans]

He is.

[Sean Pendergast]

No, he's filming something.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, you're just filming something.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's filming something now. He just flexed.

[Seth Payne]

I thought he was doing that thing of that coach that kneels and grabs the grass on the sideline and.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, I like his shirt that he's got on too.

[Seth Payne]

You guys are in for a show with Vandermeer and John.

[Sean Pendergast]

Indeed. Indeed. All right, so what are you going to be watching for today?

[Seth Payne]

Today I actually am going to start to try to zero in on the offensive and defensive line more. Even though there are no pads. I've been just. I've been watching. I've been watching all the fantasy league players out there. I want to get back down into the trenches.

[Sean Pendergast]

Nice, nice.

[Seth Payne]

I won't be distracted. Gonna have my blinders on.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, good, good. Yeah. So we got covered out here all day long. Hey, quick reminder too, for those of you, there's still some of you coming back from vacation. We will be Sports Radio 610 August 13th Circle at 8am 957. The fan is born on August 13th. So we'll be out here all day long today. Mark Vandermeer and John Harris. Got you next. John Lopez, Reggie Adatula after that. They'll have players coming off the field here as well later on. So have a great weekend out there and enjoy the rest of the day. Seth, antibodies.

[Seth Payne]

Hear that? That's now crispy and McCrispy strips meeting. Creamy Caesar sauce sounds extra crispy. Caesar sauce at McDonald's for a limited time.

[Sean Pendergast]

The Second World War is the largest

[Seth Payne]

event in human history.

[Sean Pendergast]

A 20 part series with Tom Haig. No part of the globe was untouched. No life unchanged.

[Mark Vandermeer]

Experience.

[Sean Pendergast]

The ultimate account of World War II. Every single person had a story. These are the stories that make us who we are. Listen to World War II with Tom Hanks on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Sean Pendergast]

Maxing is so maxing right now bro. Get ready for Spicy chicken maxing because Carl's Jr. Is saving you big with a $5.99 max daddy out double stack double stack Double stack Spicy chicken sandwich. Seriously, just $5.99 double stack spicy chicken.

[Seth Payne]

This is unreal value in the bromosphere.

[Sean Pendergast]

The new Spicy Chicken Max Wallet Friendly Max Tasty only at Carl's Jr available for limited time at participating restaurants, tactile included. Not valid for use within a combo or a combination with any other offered discount.

[Seth Payne]

121234 give me a break, give me a break Break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar Give me break, give me a break break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar the chocolate crispy taste gonna make

[Sean Pendergast]

your day and wherever you go you

[Seth Payne]

hear the people say Give me a

[Sean Pendergast]

break, give me a break break me

[Seth Payne]

off a piece of that Kit Kat

[Sean Pendergast]

bar have a break, have a Kit Kat.