00:00:00
Speaker 1: What's up everybody?
00:00:01
Speaker 2: Welcome in to a Friday edition of Texans All Access from the Hyundai Texans Radio Studio. I've been waiting all week to say those words, as I have, well as many of you have been going through Hurricane Barrel and then ended up in Big twelve media days out in Las Vegas. Did the show this segment from Vegas, which was always fun with the voice of the Texans who joins me now, Mark Vanderbermark.
00:00:25
Speaker 1: It is very, very good to be in the same room doing radio with you. How you doing.
00:00:28
Speaker 3: Great to be back, Johnny, back at it and can't wait for training camp coming up. We've been really counting down to this for a long time and we're within a week, I mean one week from tonight, will be through day two of camp, so a lot will have happened. Can't wait for all of that. But everybody knows that everybody's dealing with the weather. So many people still without power. Hope you get it back soon. Today's rain not welcome. But the only silver lining there is if you don't have power, it's.
00:00:57
Speaker 2: A little cooler, that's true. Cools off the house. So speaking of cooler, it was not in Las Vegas.
00:01:03
Speaker 1: I told you this. I have never been now.
00:01:08
Speaker 2: We had last June, not this past June, the June of twenty twenty three. That June, I remember, we had a stretch of one oh six or hotter for like fifteen days or something like that. You attack on the humidity, and holy cow, it was ridiculous. So when I was out in Vegas, I got out there on Tuesday, on the Monday that barrow was hitting here, Las Vegas was hit with one hundred twenty degree temperature.
00:01:37
Speaker 1: That was a high. Oh my gosh, it was one hundred and seventeen on a Tuesday that I arrived.
00:01:46
Speaker 2: So on Wednesday, my wife and I decided to go to dinner because she met me there. We walked from the Blagio, which is where the Big Twelve had their their rooms, and we walked probably a block and a half.
00:01:58
Speaker 1: It was one hundred and thirteen at seven o'clock at night. Your shoes melt. It was ridiculous.
00:02:04
Speaker 2: However, it was weird because we got to the hotel and we weren't all sweaty. You walk that far on an August day here in Houston and you're soaked you need to shower. We were not sweaty. We just we're hot and miserable. It was midnight and it was one oh six.
00:02:18
Speaker 1: See that's the difference to me.
00:02:20
Speaker 3: It was midnight, it was one o six because in Houston, when it's hot at night, there's sort of a cooler feeling, for lack of a better way of putting it. Yeah, but what I noticed when we go to Arizona for preseason games and we're out the night before. You know, when you're in the stadium, you're fine. When we're out the night before, it feels like did somebody leave the heat on?
00:02:38
Speaker 1: Right? Did somebody leave the oven open?
00:02:40
Speaker 2: That's exactly. And you're walking around at night and it's like that. It's like you walked into a car. You get into a car, and everybody's experienced this because we do have some cold temperatures, and when people in Houston get cold temperatures, they cranked the heat on their car. Well as you're driving to your car. It eventually, once you put that heat on, it gets almost stifled, like you almost can't.
00:03:01
Speaker 1: Even breathe, Like, oh, man, turn a heat off, turn a heat off.
00:03:03
Speaker 2: Oh that's what it's like when you're walking through that. It was my wife and I just couldn't stop talking about how weird it felt, how And of course she's been living out in LA for a little bit, you know, with my daughter for a while, so she's used to that La temperature.
00:03:19
Speaker 1: Then she goes to Las Vegas. I've been out here, so I'm used to it to a degree.
00:03:23
Speaker 2: But then you get out there, Mark, I I had chapped lips the entire time I was out there.
00:03:28
Speaker 1: That's right. You just killed me. Yeah, it is. It's rough on the killer, it's rough on the epidermis.
00:03:33
Speaker 3: By the way, I hope you didn't jinx us talking about the one hundred plus temperatures of twenty twenty three because with camp coming up, I don't want to have any sort of talk like that whatsoever.
00:03:42
Speaker 2: Listen, that's just fact. It wasn't like that's just the fact that just happened in June. I'm not saying, oh, we'll never have a temperatures like that again.
00:03:52
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that. I'm just saying, this is what happens here, has been better. You know, you just did it. Oh I did you just did it. Oh.
00:03:59
Speaker 3: Hanna mcnary's to be mad at me because she thinks I jinx things sometimes she does. Well, she's concerned that. I just she's concerned. I don't know if she's convinced, but she's concerned. Right, she knows she and I are on the right side of that.
00:04:12
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:04:12
Speaker 3: You you definitely did last year that she got upset up, not really upset, I'm joking. I can't remember what it was said, something about the healthy nature of the team during something like that. That did not go over well. She's like the deep your mouth shut up at that.
00:04:27
Speaker 2: It definitely have their drink because I remember her coming over to our spot, which we will be in six days. We will be in our spot right there next to field one and cannot wait and if.
00:04:40
Speaker 1: You're coming out say hi.
00:04:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, So we'll be out there a few days without the fans, and the fans will pop out there a few days before we end up going to Ohio for the Hall of Fame induction.
00:04:51
Speaker 1: So the game, what is it, Tuesday of week two or.
00:04:54
Speaker 2: Something like that, I think so, yeah to the twenty third, Yeah, the twenty thirties that day, So the tickets went incredibly fast. So sorry about that, And I mean, you could contact me if you wanted to, but.
00:05:04
Speaker 1: I couldn't help you.
00:05:05
Speaker 2: I can't In Mark two, don't don't bother us about tickets because we can't get you any because of ticket matched up. We'd like to get you in there, but if you're there, it comes to hey to us, but not when we're talking. When we're talking, just wave, just wave. If we have the headphones often comes out in fairness to people.
00:05:23
Speaker 3: This happens all the time during radio broadcasts if well, even if you are on a PA system, they come up to you. But at training camp, especially, you're talking into the headset, they come up. Some people are saying stuff like where's the restroom? Because we're right in the middle of everything. We're we're not guests services here, but we do want to help you, and I'll just point there's the porta potty over there. Yeah, but they do come up and say hi, And that's cool because I like that.
00:05:53
Speaker 1: That means they care. Oh I do. I love it too.
00:05:55
Speaker 2: I think it gets It's almost like AirPod confusing, you know, when you see somebody in there walking and then all of a sudden they start talking and you think, oh, are they talking to me?
00:06:04
Speaker 1: Hey, how you doing?
00:06:05
Speaker 2: No, No, I'm our phone call and that happens more often than not.
00:06:10
Speaker 1: When I'm on the phone.
00:06:11
Speaker 3: I try to sometimes and I'm walking near people, I'll actually put my hand up to my ear and it shows that signal. Yeah, I'm focusing. I'm focusing on this call.
00:06:22
Speaker 1: You know, you don't want to be rude.
00:06:23
Speaker 3: Also, like restaurant guy who is on the phone really loud in front of everybody and he's alone at a table and he's projecting. Well, I thought that deal was pretty good. Hey, dude, use the phone. You don't have to speak so loudly. Yeah, use headphones. Oh you missed a good segment. The other day, Tyler Milner and I did one on enjoining room neighbors at hotels, Oh, the ones you don't want, And I got a lot of feedback on that, you know, like, yeah, a guy who talks on the phone too loud. Yeah, there's definitely that overly romantic couple.
00:07:00
Speaker 1: You know.
00:07:00
Speaker 3: We went through all of them, and there were several others that came in after hours.
00:07:04
Speaker 1: The hotel one.
00:07:05
Speaker 2: It's funny because I'm not I'm not in a lot of times bothered by or hear stuff from other rooms.
00:07:10
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm concerned all the time.
00:07:13
Speaker 2: I don't want foul smells for the most part, I mean, I don't want noise.
00:07:17
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's true. I don't know, maybe some people, some people do it, you know what.
00:07:22
Speaker 3: I don't like room that's even remotely close to the elevator shaft, even if you're on the other side of the hallway. For some reason, you hear the cables, like you know. And I'm a light sleeper, especially at a hotel, because it's the fight or flight thing.
00:07:35
Speaker 2: I'm more the airport pet peeve guy, like put your headphones in. Put your headphones in. That's all you gotta do. And here's the other one. Because I experienced this, I mean during the season is I mean, everybody kind of knows each other as we you know, travel together on our on our team flights. But getting on a plane and getting off a plane it's the most mad in the world. It's the most maddening thing in the world. I don't understand how with so many smart people we can't come up with a better process of getting people and they're stuff off a plane.
00:08:12
Speaker 3: I'm actually I'm impressed we're able to pack as many people onto planes as we do. I agree with you that with our luggage, and it just takes a long time. And a lot of people don't travel all the time, so they're not used to it. And I will say this also, I heard a comedian talk about this. Might have been Luis k. I think it's been canceled. I don't know if he's back yet from cancelation, but he had a routine about people who complain about flying. Not that you're in this group, Johnny. You are in a seat thirty thousand feet above the sky going three hundred, four hundred miles per hour and you get there safely.
00:08:44
Speaker 1: That's incredible. It's an unbelievable few hundred bucks. It's unbelievable to think. But I think about that all the time. I thought about Clark would have given a lot for that kind of stuff.
00:08:53
Speaker 2: I thought about that on Tuesday, and I thought about it again yesterday because yesterday I start my day and I'm with my wife in Vegas, and then I end the night with my son and my dogs in Houston. Like that dichotomy of where you start your day and where you end your day. It's unbelievable to think that you can end up three time zones away in just four or five hours, depending on where you're going.
00:09:20
Speaker 1: So I agree with you. I just think people's.
00:09:24
Speaker 2: What's the right way of saying this. Like, for example, I was sitting I can't remember what row I was sitting. I was like Row twenty on the flight to Vegas. The plane lands and okay, we pull up to the to the gate, plane lands, and people in rows thirty and beyond are like running up and getting in the eye.
00:09:42
Speaker 4: Wrong.
00:09:43
Speaker 1: I'm like, what are you doing? Yeah, that's really wrong.
00:09:45
Speaker 2: And this guy next to me, thankfully, he kind of understood. He kind of looked at me and chuckled as well, because I'm just like, I literally said it out loud, like we do it. I mean, we're in row twenty. We can't get you know, the people in row seven. I got to get off. It's just remarkable to have.
00:09:59
Speaker 3: A connecting flight. Did they read one of those messages? Maybe would you please let those with the connecting flights exit?
00:10:04
Speaker 2: They should have said something like, hey, I've got to get a connecting flight. I really have got to go. People get the way for that. Like I let people like two or three times pass me in the security line, like hey, go ahead, you gotta go. You gotta go like, I got no problems with that, and people just say, hey, do you want I'm like, no, wow, prop security line y, Yeah for you? Oh yeah, nice, I'll I'll be definitely nice. CBS Sports did a right up on the linebackers in the NFL. So they did the top twenty linebackers in the NFL. Where do you think they had either Christian Harris or.
00:10:36
Speaker 1: Is zizel Shire out of the top twenty? Yeah? Did they make the top twenty? That's the better question.
00:10:42
Speaker 3: These I think, based on his numbers, could make the top twenty. I don't think they'll recognize Christian just yet because he's still on the rise even though he had a great second half second part of the season, plus the postseason. Picked six in a playoff game is gonna get a lot of eyeballs. But I would say disease is somewhere probably fifteen to twenty on this NFL list.
00:11:04
Speaker 2: See, I was with your thinking. I thought that too. They did not put either one on there. They have a few that I have some questions about, but okay, that's I mean, it's fine.
00:11:15
Speaker 3: Let me ask you this about before you go there. When we do two deeps now Johnny, and you notice how they do the nickel now and Tyler and I were talking about this the other day, but I brought up, why do we even bother for four to three talking about three linebackers as starters when when they start being done? Yeah, I mean when they play less than forty percent of the time. In other words, your deal, that third linebacker is literally now in today's NFL, a situational player. That's the situation, not the nickel guy. The nickel guy isn't the situational player. He's a regular player. He's playing over sixty percent of the snaps in today's NFL. The third linebacker is only playing less than forty Yep.
00:11:59
Speaker 1: Right, you read my damn mind? Okay, because that's exactly where I was going with this. It was a couple of things.
00:12:04
Speaker 2: Number One, neither of the Texans made this top twenty list for linebackers.
00:12:09
Speaker 1: I didn't have too much of a quibble with that. I mean, I understand it.
00:12:12
Speaker 2: Disease has kind of been doing this his thing in relative obscurity because he's backing up to of the greats and Drake green Law and Fred Warner who's number one on this list, and green Laws on this list as well, and he only had one year with Tennessee where he was very very good, but that's not enough to really get enough attention to get on a list like this. Fifteen through twenty, I thought, eh, I don't know. I mean Tremaine Advance for the Bears. That was a big free to sign on. If he's good now, jokay that at fifteen he should have been at top ten. Foyle Lucan, who we know for the Jaguars at sixteen. Frankieluvu with the Commanders now at seventeenth is very very good.
00:12:45
Speaker 1: We saw him with Carolina last year. Logan Wilson eighteen.
00:12:47
Speaker 2: I love Jelani Tylai for the Patriots has been good relative obscurity. I even paced junior undrafted out of Cincinnati they have at number twenty, and he kind of projects him to be in that group. Don't have a lot of I really don't. I think disease is better than probably two or three of those guys. But you kind of brought up my point because I was having this guy. I had this conversation I think it was with Brain and Scott when I did I did Morning Show back. I think Memorial day, maybe back in May, and he he brought this up, and I thought it was an interesting point, but it kind of leads to something that you talked about. Are you concerned at all with the linebacker depth that the Texans have? And I bring that up because to your point, one of my answers was, you know your base defense. We can think about your base defense now you don't think about a four man or a four to three. What a lot of people say is, well, they play a four man surface or they're a three man surface, which is the old school four to three, you know, three four sort of thing. And I don't know that anybody is playing a third linebacker, whether it's.
00:13:55
Speaker 1: A three four four three, But it just it just feels like.
00:13:59
Speaker 2: The the linebacker position has changed so much that you don't need to have the numbers maybe you've had in the past, and maybe you can get away with, you know, five linebackers on the roster because you're.
00:14:12
Speaker 1: Only gonna play two.
00:14:13
Speaker 2: One of those guys is gonna be, like you said, the situational linebacker. But you can always play a safety or play nickel in that star position, which is what you're gonna play majority of the time.
00:14:23
Speaker 1: Anyways.
00:14:24
Speaker 3: But okay, in your five two or four to five or whatever however you want to describe it, let's look at it this way. Johnny Christian Harris and disease. Yep, if one gets hurt, right, who's playing?
00:14:41
Speaker 1: I think that's the big question. Yeah.
00:14:43
Speaker 3: Is it Jacob Phillips who we talked about because we aired his interview the other night, and that could be this year's Blake Cashman, guy who's suddenly healthy enough, and my gosh, look at the ability because he's out there, he's available. Jake Hanson, he's another player who could rise. I'm gonna say this, is it a cond I would say yes, because there's not a sure thing there if one of those two guys goes down. But I have faith in the coaching staff and in the personnel department that they came up with enough options here as a solution where it's all gonna work out. In other words, can Henry take the jump that Kristin Harris did or something similar like that. Hanson with health I think is a pretty good player. Now, Neville Hewitt can play, but he's there. He's a special team team, right, but he could still play for you if you need to I don't know about del Sean Phillips maybe.
00:15:35
Speaker 2: I mean he's he's thought to be a special team's guy. Jamal Hill is going to be interesting. And how how he fits in because of how he runs that that's gonna be one. And like you said, because that third linebacker position is more situational now than a nickel or a star is, I think the roster making for that third linebacker spot, so to speak, becomes huh, kind of doghead turned, like, man, what do we really this could be unique?
00:16:02
Speaker 1: How we use this guy?
00:16:03
Speaker 4: Well?
00:16:03
Speaker 1: And then your guy from the East West game, what's his name again?
00:16:06
Speaker 3: Eric Eric Galco? Eric Galco, who was instrumental in the kickoff rule in the XFL. He talked about the need for linebackers in the kick return game and that, look, we talked about this in a three four defense for a long time. You know, those linebackers really help with your special teams. Well, now you're looking at special teams with a premium that we haven't seen maybe ever. We don't know how to assess the kickoff right now. We know it's going to be a monumental play in games. And again it's something that yeah, people are talking about it, But I just don't know if we really know what to make up it until.
00:16:39
Speaker 1: We see it in the flesh.
00:16:41
Speaker 3: But yeah, you need linebackers to play in that phase of the game. So you're gonna need some decent, two really great special teamers, and some volume there at the linebacking corps.
00:16:52
Speaker 2: This hit me when I was in Vegas, and I just the math on it again because when I was talking Eric, that got me thinking, Wow, we are going to be the first game with those new kickoff rules.
00:17:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the first game, Guinea Pig game.
00:17:04
Speaker 2: And then today when I was walking in, I started thinking, that's also the first game where we're gonna see our new uniforms.
00:17:10
Speaker 1: Man, that's gonna be a wild, a wild night. Well, I don't know this what color they wear?
00:17:15
Speaker 3: I know that's what I was thinking. Which one the road UNI, it's not a road game. It's a neutral site game.
00:17:20
Speaker 5: Right.
00:17:21
Speaker 3: You might be in your home uniform. Right, It's definitely not gonna be h Town blue or battle red.
00:17:25
Speaker 4: We know that.
00:17:26
Speaker 2: I tell you what, if there's a screw up, it's gonna look at innsquad scrimmage.
00:17:29
Speaker 6: I know, bears and guard detail, squad scrip like blue black blue it is. But yeah, I thought about that, man, that is a wild night.
00:17:41
Speaker 2: The new Uniformstrey's going in the Hall of Fame, new kickoff rules, and then obviously, you know, unveiling the team for the first time, and we know what that game, we're probably you know, probably not gonna see c J. There's gonna you're gonna see a lot of the the twos, the threes, the fours, et cetera. But it's gonna be a really good opportunity for those guys. But unveiling that kickoff rule is gonna be.
00:18:00
Speaker 1: I am pumped for that one.
00:18:02
Speaker 3: I am so for all these preseason games, not just because a it's Texans twenty twenty four and we're off and running, but the Hall of Fame game for everything you just described, the environment, all the Texans fans that are gonna be there. There's gonna be a ton of Texans fans in that building that night for that game, and obviously for the induction ceremony on Saturday. And I don't know about that dinner on Friday. I guess that's an exclusive event. Who knows, you and I will be live for Texans all access to that Friday night between the game and the ceremony, but also a week later at Pittsburgh.
00:18:33
Speaker 1: I just and I know you feel the same way. I love going to Pittsburgh.
00:18:36
Speaker 3: I love it and playing the Steelers, storied franchise in their building. Yeah, you're not at three Rivers. You're at a better stadium. You're at the former Heinz Field.
00:18:45
Speaker 7: You know.
00:18:46
Speaker 2: Weird it was when we went there in twenty I was so excited. Steelers on his schedule. I when I went there in fourteen, it was my first time I had been to Pittsburgh. But that night football, Monday night football, we don't do well. But I loved it.
00:19:00
Speaker 1: I had got to walk the city, went to Fromanni Brothers. I loved it.
00:19:04
Speaker 2: It was was in October. I think it was gorgeous weather. I mean, what an environment Monday night. It was really cool. So you go back there in twenty twenty, it's covid. There's not a soul in that stadium.
00:19:17
Speaker 1: Or anywhere downtown. I would have been anywhere nowhere. We just we basically were hold up in our room. Yeah, it was wait, are you go outside and go for a walk?
00:19:25
Speaker 5: No?
00:19:27
Speaker 1: Really, I didn't go outside, didn't do anything. Now, we were also playing that game at noon too.
00:19:30
Speaker 2: Oh so its noon as well, I should say, so I didn't really you know, the Monday night game.
00:19:35
Speaker 1: I had all kinds of time in the morning to go down and went to P and C.
00:19:38
Speaker 3: And this is going to sound a little morbid, but Pittsburgh, We've been there several times in about Texans history, and I've been there for college basketball as well. Yeah, back in the day you walk downtown, there are these old churches right right in the thick of everything with graveyards in front, with ravestones from the early eighteen hundreds of late seventeen.
00:19:58
Speaker 1: I think at the late that's wild. I don't know.
00:20:01
Speaker 3: I like looking at that stuff because I think about people's lives and what they did, and I read the tombstone.
00:20:07
Speaker 2: And it just adds to the history of the city to me, which I yeah, you're right, it does sound a little bit more of in some sense, but it's historical and it's in some sense celebrating those people.
00:20:18
Speaker 1: I think that's really cool, to be honest with you.
00:20:20
Speaker 3: But three rivers merging and Pittsburgh is a great, hallowed American city.
00:20:24
Speaker 2: Yes, very cool city that it wasn't really until fourteen that I was like, Wow, this voice is great. Really just didn't understand how great it was. So we'll have that and then we come back home for two games. I'll take place at twelve noon, so make sure because I know preseason clocks for people are a little different. You know, we get to wait till seven o'clock to see the game on TV or see it live and Energy state.
00:20:46
Speaker 3: No, the game will be at new I'm gonna throw something at you right now, okay, because here's something worth watching.
00:20:52
Speaker 1: And I don't know what's gonna happen.
00:20:53
Speaker 3: I haven't taught to anybody, but with the damage to the roof, which is no secret. Everyone's seen the video and everything like that, I don't know how they're going to get it done in time. There is some time, but there are also needs of resources and people to do the.
00:21:11
Speaker 1: Work and things like that.
00:21:12
Speaker 3: I'm not sure how they're going to fix it, or if they're able to fix it the way that they fixed it following the eight season, when they had to leave the roof open for the entire campaign. Now the circus was supposed to be in here next week, they're done. They canceled the event, so shoul. They have insurance for that and things like that, but it's too bad the circus and kids and tickets and all that. But I'm wondering how that is going to affect Texans games, especially early, because once you get through the preseason games, all right, you're playing a night game week two, you're on the road week three, and then what do you back to back at home? I think, but it hardly cools off to sixty five degrees and beautiful in early October, So we'll see how it all goes. I am not sure how they're going to handle it. I don't know if they know how they're going to handle it, because there are other priorities in the city right now. But that is worth watching to see how it affects Texans games.
00:22:07
Speaker 1: I mean, if the roof has got to be open for a noon preseason game, I don't.
00:22:11
Speaker 3: I wonder, like I look at it now, or look at the videos and photos that we've seen, the aerial shots from the news media, and I'm thinking, could you just leave it like that? Run the ac? I know you're leaking ac like crazy and you're running up the electric I don't know. It's easy for me to say themist you're okay, turn it out to seventy three instead of seventy one or whatever you normally have it. And I don't know, there's a little dial somewhere, you know, Hey, who'll mess with the thermist?
00:22:39
Speaker 7: That?
00:22:39
Speaker 5: No?
00:22:39
Speaker 1: That does Well, here's the other thing too, just given the damage.
00:22:42
Speaker 2: And I don't know the full construction of it, but I mean there are there are you know, open area, like can you can you close the roof because of I don't know. I don't know the roof is closed right now? What do you so you know, I mean open the room? Can you open it without having issues?
00:23:00
Speaker 4: I don't know.
00:23:00
Speaker 1: I mean it's a great question. I don't know.
00:23:01
Speaker 3: So it's gonna yeh, You're right, that is definitely gonna be. It's a story worth watching, no doubt. You know you're going to be hearing a bunch about that as we get closer. There's a Zach Bryan concert as well, July twenty ninth. I don't know what they're gonna do about that either, So I'm sure we're going to hear about that soon. So the circus I think needs total darkness, yeah, to function, and they have day shows, so I think that along with the safety.
00:23:24
Speaker 1: What have you got? Well, think about it.
00:23:26
Speaker 2: Think about a playoff game that we have here, and the shadows that are created and they're doing the trapees swinging and all of a sudden, you're going from one dark day. You know, it's like trying to hit a ring we field with the shadows going to grab the bar.
00:23:38
Speaker 1: But I saw a shotow it. Uh yeah.
00:23:43
Speaker 2: Luckily in Las Vegas, Ellegia Stadium is covered and it was nice and cool for me to catch up with my counterpart, basically the me and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. My buddy TJ. Reeves was covering the Big twelve for tune in. But obviously we talked Bucks, we talked NFL, we talked TJ. Strout and Baker Mayfield. And we'll do that next right here, tech, what's happening, everybody? Welcome back to this edition of Texans All Acts as a Friday edition from that Texans Radio studio.
00:24:06
Speaker 1: So glad to be back home in Houston.
00:24:10
Speaker 2: I have your host John Harris football on a sideline reporter and I know a lot of you are still struggling hopefully, you know, just talking ball and just listening to Mark and I talkball, and our next guest talk ball. Maybe that's just enough to give you a couple of minutes of hey man, just checking out, just thinking football, and that's cool. If that's the that's the the least we can do, then fantastic. But hopefully you guys are getting power back. And I know there's another rainstorm today that was pretty pretty rugged. So everybody hangs strong, as they say, Houston strong, stay tough, and we'll get past this as we always do and be the city that we have grown into, which is one that carries universal respect, even all the way down in Tampa Bay, where the Buccaneers were that cried in their beer a little bit eboor city last.
00:24:56
Speaker 1: Year as the Texans CJ.
00:24:58
Speaker 2: Strouden tanked out put them to last year with a touchdown that just on a drive that was just I don't know how you just how do you describe last year's with over the Buccaneers.
00:25:10
Speaker 1: Well, I had to bring it up with our next guest, and I didn't. I didn't think I was going to see him at all. TJ.
00:25:15
Speaker 2: Reeves is the sideline reporter for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He does a tremendous job covering them. He covers college basketball, boxing, every sport.
00:25:25
Speaker 1: He knows it well.
00:25:26
Speaker 4: He got a call to.
00:25:27
Speaker 2: Cover Big twelve Media Days for tune In with a new media deal that tune In has done with the Big twelve, and so when I saw him, I was like, man, what do you do in here? He kind of said the same thing to me. But we were We were happy to see each other, happy to talk some ball. We talked about that Buccaneers game. So you know, let's dive in.
00:25:46
Speaker 1: It's my buddy TJ Reeves and I at Big twelve Media Days. Let's go all right. I gotta admit there are a lot of people.
00:25:53
Speaker 2: I didn't think I was going to run into here at Big twelve Media Days, but I run in one of my good friends. He is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers version of me, but better. It's my guy TJ Reeves.
00:26:04
Speaker 1: TJ.
00:26:05
Speaker 2: What are you doing here for Big twelve Media Days? You're like the last person I thought would be here. Now I'm glad to see you. Don't get me wrong, but I looked over here and I was like, what the hell's he doing here?
00:26:14
Speaker 5: Let's go on.
00:26:15
Speaker 7: You know, I tend to get around, you know, wherever in Florida, Vegas, whatever it takes, Pluto, am I to take that as a good thing that I'm you and you're me with the Texans and the Buccaneers.
00:26:25
Speaker 5: Is that a good thing?
00:26:25
Speaker 1: It's a bad thing for you, It's a good thing for me.
00:26:27
Speaker 5: Okay, I'm just checking on that. Listen.
00:26:29
Speaker 7: I've gotten a fantastic opportunity here recently because tune In Online Goliath Digital outlet has done a deal with the Big Twelve Conference as the new exclusive digital home of the Big Twelve, and so we'll pull the curtain back a little bit. I got a phone call last week from my former boss, Kevin Strelei because the deal had come together that quickly, that hey, we're gonna have availability and access for coaches and players in this now sixteen team lead to come get interviews that we will use for this channel for the upcoming season in the preview mode. Can you be here and be part of this? And I have that mentality, like you have that mentality of when certain people call you and say I need something from you. If I'm able, I'm gonna be here here. I am in Las Vegas a week later, my friend.
00:27:18
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Very very cool.
00:27:20
Speaker 2: We're gonna talk about the Bucks here in a little bit, but just your opportunity to talk with all the coaches and the players.
00:27:25
Speaker 4: How cool was that?
00:27:26
Speaker 1: And I gotta ask, how was it for Coach Prime to sit next to you?
00:27:29
Speaker 7: Okay, so a lot of it is a blur because we're doing this after it just happened. And I literally talked to fifteen of the sixteen coaches. I talked literally to probably forty or fifty players from the sixteen schools.
00:27:45
Speaker 5: So it was fascinating to learn these stories.
00:27:47
Speaker 7: I mean, bear in mind, you guys along with in Houston, along with UCF and Cincinnati and BYU were new last year, and now you got four more in Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Arizona State. There are new that's eight new teams in the league in two years. So this is a lot to get used to for everybody. So I found it fascinating. And you mentioned Coach Prime in Colorado. They were very end of day two here that they came to us, and I found him fascinating. He was engaging, He understands there are a lot of eyes on them, there are a lot of arrows pointed at them. He continues to repeat that the change that they have made in roster in coordinators will benefit them. I see the look on your face, and we've already been talking about this.
00:28:33
Speaker 5: The proof in that is are.
00:28:34
Speaker 7: They going to be any better on the field, because if they're not, there are all kinds of people that are going to come out of the caves and the weeds and everywhere else after them because of the notoriety and the attention that a lot of people believe at this point some I won't say a lot believe isn't warranted for having a one to.
00:28:53
Speaker 5: Eight finish to last season.
00:28:55
Speaker 7: So we'll find out if their new roster, their new coordinators make something different. But I thought, here, I don't know what your impression was. I thought Dion coach Prime was saying a lot of the right things about trying to be different or better this year.
00:29:08
Speaker 1: I think so on I think he's got a lot of connections to this conference.
00:29:11
Speaker 2: He started his press conference talking about Joey Maguire, who coached his son in high school, and talk about Gus Malzan who recruited Shador, And I mean, he talked about a number of coaches and he's like, those are just ones I can come up at the top of my head.
00:29:22
Speaker 1: I mean, he's compelling.
00:29:24
Speaker 2: When he went up there to speak, he was the first coach to speak at the start of day two at the big podium, everybody was over there.
00:29:30
Speaker 7: I can verify for having been here yesterday because I don't think you were here yesterday when most of those coaches were talking.
00:29:36
Speaker 5: There were some that were in there.
00:29:39
Speaker 7: And to your point, when they introduced him, there were dozens, three or four dozens that walked to that area to be engaged to hear what he has to say. But now, ultimately, this is what we do. This is the fun we have. What does that mean come September, October, November on, are they going to be any better? Sure you can win Prescot Conference is sure, you win the social media, the impressions, the likes, whatever. But if you don't win the football games, this stuff isn't gonna last much longer.
00:30:09
Speaker 5: The hype, the hype, it doesn't last much longer.
00:30:11
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's talk about our two main jobs. Last year, at this time, both and I were to sit down, You and I were to sit down and talk and said, Okay, how's your team going to be in twenty three, it would.
00:30:21
Speaker 1: Have been I don't know. You got a rookie quarterback. You've got Baker Mayfield.
00:30:26
Speaker 5: I don't know.
00:30:27
Speaker 1: I don't know.
00:30:27
Speaker 2: Then we sat there and met in week nine in one of the games of the year, which was absolutely incredible.
00:30:32
Speaker 7: Will remind me again about CJ. Stroud for the win in the final twenty seconds. I think I got over that about fifteen minutes ago.
00:30:38
Speaker 1: I listen, is still a game for you.
00:30:40
Speaker 5: It was a good postgame show for you. Try being me after that game.
00:30:44
Speaker 2: Okay, but I think you found a lot out about Baker Mayfield that game because I was down in the end zone on that throat to and at the end of the game. That's as good as throw as that was made all day long, as CG made some incredible ones. You guys bounce back from that end up getting to the playoffs. What was it that run like through that game? But then getting back to the playoffs in twelve?
00:31:02
Speaker 5: They showed something after that.
00:31:04
Speaker 7: You're absolutely right, because they could have folded down the stretch of the season and a lot of people's belief was this is a two, three, maybe four win team. Now this is maybe easy to say for your audience in Houston. I was proclaiming from the mountaintop that is bs. There are too many talented players, too much will to win for this to be a three or four win situation. Maybe it's not going to be a nine to ten or eleven win situation, but it's not going to be three or four wins. And lo and Behold, go to Atlanta and win in the final seconds on another mayfield touchdown to kay Dot and go to.
00:31:40
Speaker 5: Green Bay and win in December.
00:31:42
Speaker 7: Franchise in their history had never won in December in like fifteen tries at Lambo, including the playoffs. Won a game in December and then won the division in a game that was ugly field goal fest, a low scoring game, got in the playoffs and won a playoff game against the Eagles, where anything can happen in the postseason after many people believe the season was going to be over by Halloween. So the interesting thing is now come around to this year. It starts anew, It starts zero zero in the win loss column. And what does last year ultimately mean? What do you build on We don't know that, but there will be much more expectation. There are many people that believe the Bucks will be better this year, just like the Texans. Texans make the playoffs, so you're there's higher expectation this year. You're not somebody that's an afterthought.
00:32:29
Speaker 1: So let's talk about that.
00:32:30
Speaker 2: Baker Mayfield comes back, Mike Evans returns, and there was a lot of talk Mike being from Galveston.
00:32:35
Speaker 1: There's a lot of talk the Texans.
00:32:36
Speaker 2: Going out and getting Mic and putting him with Tank and with Nico, and then the Bucks snapped him back, snatched him back for two years. What are their additions the Bucks made? How'd you like to draft? What do you think about the Bucks in twenty four?
00:32:47
Speaker 7: So the first thing is they had a tremendous free agency by keeping the guys you just mentioned Mayfield and Evans, and I will add Anchwan Winfield, the.
00:32:56
Speaker 1: Final man the Woodlands. Yes, we wanted him to.
00:33:00
Speaker 7: And so those three guys re sign and general manager Jason Light is like, we had a tremendous free agency class and we didn't leave the eight one to three area code to keep.
00:33:08
Speaker 5: Those guys in Tampa Bay.
00:33:10
Speaker 7: And so now you couple that with a draft and we're, you know, we're very intrigued to see what's going to unfold out of these draft classes. Because we've talked about Kadott, and we've mentioned Rashad White, the running back out of a mid round draft selection. Yai YadA Vi, a pass rusher, has been tremendous out.
00:33:30
Speaker 5: Of the mid rounds.
00:33:31
Speaker 7: And so this team goes and gets a big offensive lineman in Graham Barton, a road grater as an interior offensive lineman out of Duke. They go in the second round and get a pass rusher from Alabama. Have we heard of Nick Saban having guys drafted in the first and second round? My god, it's literally over fifty five players drafted under Nick Saban in the first or second round. So Chris braswell as the pass rusher. So you've added some components. I love the little speedy back Bucky err out of Oregon. This dude small Warwick Dunn reminder, little scat back, speed guy, catch the ball out.
00:34:08
Speaker 5: Of the backfield.
00:34:09
Speaker 7: So you've you've got some components out of this draft that I think we're eager to see, even in guys that you took in some later rounds of the draft that can maybe help this team.
00:34:18
Speaker 4: TJ.
00:34:19
Speaker 1: Reeves covers the Bucks sideline.
00:34:21
Speaker 2: He is the John Harrison Tampa Bay, which is not a good thing for him, but that is the truth. Covering to Big Twelve here man, it's great to see you, my brother. We won't see you this year, but we'll definitely see down road.
00:34:30
Speaker 3: Mail.
00:34:31
Speaker 1: We'll talk soon.
00:34:31
Speaker 7: Anytime that you need me, And even though this was unexpected, anytime that you need me, I'm there for you. And listen, you got to enjoy a tremendous season. I felt for you the same way that all of us that are going through bad season after bad season want to see playoffs, want to see better team, better locker room. Everybody's in a better mood, food taste better, you sleep better. Everybody gets along when you win. So I'm thrilled for you that you got the playoff experience last year that we got. Let's have again this year if we can, if we can wish for it.
00:35:02
Speaker 5: Let's do it.
00:35:03
Speaker 2: I am all for it.
00:35:04
Speaker 1: TJ the best man.
00:35:05
Speaker 5: Thank you, John.
00:35:06
Speaker 1: Great to be with your brother, Yeah, man, great dude, does this stuff. Love getting a chance to talk to TJ.
00:35:11
Speaker 2: Reeves Tampay buccaneer, salient reporter and covered the Big Twelve for Tune In this past week at Media.
00:35:18
Speaker 1: Days, all Right closed up on a Friday. I thought we'd had some fun Drew Doerty and I did it.
00:35:22
Speaker 2: End the LAB episode that really had some people talking about the concept of adding former Houston professional players to this twenty twenty.
00:35:33
Speaker 1: Four a roster.
00:35:34
Speaker 2: Look, this roster is much different than it has been. But we've been doing this project, if you will, for a while. So we had each come up with two players that we would add onto this current roster.
00:35:45
Speaker 1: I think you'll like them, So let's play an nextra here in textuntil Access.
00:35:51
Speaker 2: We were one final segment of this Friday edition that Texas All Access coming at you. I'm John Harris for Silent Reporter, one half of the end of Lab podcast. The other half, well my better half podcast wise Drew Doherty. We sat down and we came up with two each, four total players that played Houston professional football that we would put on this roster.
00:36:11
Speaker 8: Let's go twenty twenty four Texans of pretty Salty. We're excited about them, are they No? Have they won any games yet?
00:36:18
Speaker 5: No?
00:36:19
Speaker 8: But as they're constructed right now in June. Who from a professional Houston football team? Who is retired? So no current players or no players that work in Houston that are ping ponging around the the league. A retired Houston professional football players, So it could be a gambler, it could be an oiler, could be a former Texan which to former Houston professionals, would you want.
00:36:53
Speaker 4: To add to this team? I get to go first. I'm taking a royal Campbell busted.
00:36:56
Speaker 5: Ooh oh oh wow.
00:36:59
Speaker 1: Didn't even give me a.
00:37:00
Speaker 4: Chance to bring chance.
00:37:02
Speaker 8: You gotta and I'm putting you on the defensive here, but it's obvious to me. Hey, Joe Mixon, you're you're really good back and there are intriguing things ahead for you. Damian Pierce, same deal. How about you you are, Jordan how about you Daria Goal?
00:37:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, all of you. You're not getting kicked off the island.
00:37:21
Speaker 8: You're merely adding maybe the greatest professional football player in the history of Houstons First.
00:37:28
Speaker 4: One of the first.
00:37:29
Speaker 8: Plays that Earl Campbell ever had. It was at Atlanta and he takes a pass and what goes eighty yards for a touchdown.
00:37:36
Speaker 4: Yep, that's pretty cool. It's on YouTube. Check that out. But give me Earl.
00:37:40
Speaker 8: Campbell in this offense. Earl Campbell would look pretty darn nice with CJ and Stefan and Nico.
00:37:49
Speaker 5: So here we go.
00:37:50
Speaker 1: It's a friend of ours. If I were to ask you just point blank, Drew a friend of ours, a friend of ours.
00:37:56
Speaker 2: Like the biggest gap or biggest hole that this team has offensively, just right off the bat, what is it?
00:38:05
Speaker 4: Biggest hole offensively, the.
00:38:07
Speaker 1: Biggest question mark that were just unsure.
00:38:10
Speaker 4: About, maybe left guard.
00:38:13
Speaker 2: That's exactly right, and that's why I am going with our buddy Wade Smith number one. Now, again, there are changes by eras throughout eras and how you do things.
00:38:26
Speaker 1: This offense is very similar.
00:38:29
Speaker 2: But one of the things that you cannot do that you used to be able to do, and actually Wade was very very good at this, was to cut guys on the backside.
00:38:37
Speaker 1: He was so agile and so good that he could just chop guys down in the back end.
00:38:43
Speaker 2: And that allowed Arion Foster a lot of cut up runs back behind his center, back behind Wade. When runs that would go right, they would come back left behind what Wade was doing. But there's so much to Wade. He's very good in his own scheme. I think Wade is one heck of a leader. I think he'd have the absolute right meanor to help Juice Scruggs next to him to be able to work with Laramie Tunsel. I think Wade Smith would fit his own scheme. I think he would fit this locker room. I would go with Wade Smith all day, every day. He jumps right into the left guard where he was very comfortable, where he turned into.
00:39:16
Speaker 1: A pro bowler, became a pro bowler while he was here.
00:39:19
Speaker 2: With the Texans.
00:39:20
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, a little bit undersize, but he never.
00:39:23
Speaker 2: You wouldn't watch a game and go, oh, he's getting his butt kicked because he's too small. I mean, Wade never got his butt kicked. And he would tell you he wasn't as heavy as some other guys. But that dude had great technique. He was quick and agile, He was a tremendous athlete, and he was a leader in the locker room without being this, you know how, my chest sort of guy. He was just very you know, he was very quick to pull guys aside and tell him this is the way we do it. And I just would I would love his demeanor on this offensive line and on this offense in general.
00:39:59
Speaker 1: I just I think there are a lot of guys. You know, we've seen him, They've they've got some fire.
00:40:03
Speaker 2: And Wade's got fired, but he just has it and channels it in a little bit different way. So I'm going with Wade Smith right off the bat. So we've had to Earl Campbell and Wade Smith to this offense.
00:40:13
Speaker 1: So my gosh, look out.
00:40:15
Speaker 4: Good choice there.
00:40:16
Speaker 8: Now, since I was a big jerk and took Earl Campbell right off the bat, didn't let you, didn't let you have a say, we'll do We'll do snake in this one. So you can go again, who else professional football player from the city or played for a City of Houston team. Who would you add to this current twenty four squad?
00:40:37
Speaker 2: Well, I feel like there's an obvious answer, and I don't know if I'm gonna.
00:40:44
Speaker 8: I want to obvious matches with my obvious Well, I'm gonna take ninety nine. Okay, that wasn't the obvious one that I had, but that is, Yeah, that could always be a good one.
00:40:56
Speaker 2: And I don't need there's a part of me that doesn't want to doesn't want to say it because maybe he doesn't stay retired.
00:41:06
Speaker 1: I don't know.
00:41:06
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't want to kick over that that uh that fire ant mound again. Uh, like it got kicked over back in February and March when everybody's like, oh.
00:41:15
Speaker 1: He's coming back, and then the miko's got.
00:41:17
Speaker 2: To answer questions and JJ's on podcast answered questions and you know, it's stirs everything up. I don't know that I really truly want to do that, but but my my thought process is one like this, when you said, go.
00:41:28
Speaker 4: Ahead, you're going best player, yeah this one.
00:41:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, my my first thought was, Okay, I'm not totally sure just yet what this defensive interior on a three down basis is going to look like. And I say that, but I think that Fatukasi and Settle are gonna be better than people think. That's that's that's my assessment. But I feel like if you were to put JJ in that group and just let him play the three technique and let him play in this defense where he can just penetrate and get up field, that's what he did anyways when he was playing inside. Now, I know there were times JJ was like, I don't I don't really want to play inside. And I didn't blame him because there were you know, two two and a half blockers responsible for him on almost every play, and that's a that's a pain physically and mentally to kind of deal with all the time.
00:42:25
Speaker 1: And so he wanted to be on the outside where he could use his as you call.
00:42:29
Speaker 2: It, his jungle cat skills to get one on one against pastra, to get against offensive tackles or even tight ends in some cases. And so I know he didn't want to play in there permanently, but I think in his defense, you know, even with Daniel Hunter and Will Anderson, you know those two guys actually can go bounce inside if he need him to. There are a lot of different combinations that you could you could throw. But imagine a pass rush that's got Daniel Hunter and Will Anderson on the outside and Deniico Autry and JJ.
00:42:58
Speaker 1: Watt on the inside.
00:42:59
Speaker 2: I mean, in all honesty, those are all four guys that you would say, if they were on four separate teams, who are you going to double this week? Well, we're gonna double Will. No, we're gonna double Daniel. No, we're gonna double Watt, and we're gonna double Autry. You know, those would be the guys that you'd want to double or chip on if they're outside, you might, as the Patriots did against JJ, you would send your running back not to the outside to help with your tackles, but wherever JJ.
00:43:26
Speaker 1: Is, that running back is gonna go help. Well, if you do that against this pass rush, all of.
00:43:30
Speaker 2: A sudden, here's there's Daniko one on one against the guard, which he can win with quickness, hands, strength, and then you've got your two edge guys that can win.
00:43:38
Speaker 1: So I'm not totally sure that I want.
00:43:42
Speaker 2: JJ every single play playing inside, but I do feel like having him give me the opportunity if I if I get thirty plays out of JJ in a game, and he's getting some inside you know, he plays across from Settle on some plays, he plays across from Fat too Costi on others. You know, maybe there's an opportunity for he and Khalil Davis to be out there together together with the guys you have on the outside.
00:44:08
Speaker 1: There's a lot of different things you can do with JJ because of that flexibility and that versatility.
00:44:13
Speaker 2: Is funny because versatility kind of became this word in the mid twenty tens that people hated hearing because it oftentimes got stamped on the guys that would line up at different positions but weren't very good at any of them. Well, JJ lined up at every position on the defensive line. He was dominanting all of them.
00:44:29
Speaker 4: And so I'm gonna go with all pro and what twelve and fourteen?
00:44:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, we see all Pro two different positions. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's incredible. So I'm gonna go.
00:44:40
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go to ninety nine. And the scary thing in some sense is that maybe it happens.
00:44:47
Speaker 1: I don't know.
00:44:47
Speaker 2: I was watching JJ's soccer highlights the other day, Drew and he was playing in some TSD seven on seven tournament and it.
00:44:56
Speaker 1: Was kind of comical. But yet JJ was the best athlete on a feel. He looked amazing.
00:45:02
Speaker 2: I mean, the things he was doing in soccer, diving headers, I mean, he just incredible.
00:45:07
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:45:09
Speaker 2: So you know, if he decides to come back at some point and all those guys are healthy, what I just outlined, those four pass rushers being on the field would be like a be a dream for Texans fans in some respects. All right, you finish it up, but your final one.
00:45:24
Speaker 4: We haven't picked anybody in the secondary.
00:45:26
Speaker 8: And there's a Pro Football Famer who in fourteen years, he had sixty takeaways, had twenty one fumble recoveries in his career. He had forty nine interceptions in his career. In nine of forty nine he took to the house for a touchdown. He also took back a fumble recovery for score, so he scored ten touchdowns on defense. And he also he returned to punt for a score in nineteen seventy four. We're talking about Ken Houston now different times, yes, but simply for his impact and who he was, his playmaking ability, I got to put him back there.
00:46:10
Speaker 4: And no, we're not shoving anybody.
00:46:12
Speaker 8: No Jimmy Ward is getting nobody's getting cut, but he's there in the mix with those guys. I'm gonna add a Pro Football Hall of Famer to the back end of the defense.
00:46:20
Speaker 4: You had a Pro Football Hall of Famer to the front end.
00:46:23
Speaker 8: JJ's going in, can't and whenever it's all over, add one guy at the very back. He played for the Oilers in the sixties and early seventies and then played on a very fine Washington squad for a good chunk of the nineteen seventies. So gimme Ken Houston and When I started here with the Texans in two thousand and nine, I saw Ken Houston around the team quite a bit. It was a Texans Ambassador. Now it's called the Texans Legends Program, and that's an NFL wide thing everyone in the NFL. It's mandated by league. If you played for a team, you are there. You are a legend for that team. If you played in one game, you played in one stap for a game, or if you're like JJ Watt and you're one of the best in franchise, doesn't matter. You're a legend for that team. So he was in that Ambassador program, which kind of is the precursor of the Legends program that we have now. Saw him at a lot of community events, saw him here at games, interacted with him. He's a fascinating dude. He's one of the best to do it. He did it a long time ago. So the further you get away from some guy's playing career, the lesson the younger generation knows about him.
00:47:27
Speaker 4: But this guy think about it. Sixty takeaways in his career.
00:47:32
Speaker 2: Earl Campbell, Waite, Smith, JJ Watt, Ken Houston, we did a great job, and you guys did a great job.
00:47:37
Speaker 1: For listening.
00:47:38
Speaker 2: We will see you on Monday. Y'all stay safe over the weekend. Big thanks everybody to participate on the show, Mark Drew. All you guys are listening. We'll see tomorrow and as always, go Texans.
Speaker 1: What's up everybody?
00:00:01
Speaker 2: Welcome in to a Friday edition of Texans All Access from the Hyundai Texans Radio Studio. I've been waiting all week to say those words, as I have, well as many of you have been going through Hurricane Barrel and then ended up in Big twelve media days out in Las Vegas. Did the show this segment from Vegas, which was always fun with the voice of the Texans who joins me now, Mark Vanderbermark.
00:00:25
Speaker 1: It is very, very good to be in the same room doing radio with you. How you doing.
00:00:28
Speaker 3: Great to be back, Johnny, back at it and can't wait for training camp coming up. We've been really counting down to this for a long time and we're within a week, I mean one week from tonight, will be through day two of camp, so a lot will have happened. Can't wait for all of that. But everybody knows that everybody's dealing with the weather. So many people still without power. Hope you get it back soon. Today's rain not welcome. But the only silver lining there is if you don't have power, it's.
00:00:57
Speaker 2: A little cooler, that's true. Cools off the house. So speaking of cooler, it was not in Las Vegas.
00:01:03
Speaker 1: I told you this. I have never been now.
00:01:08
Speaker 2: We had last June, not this past June, the June of twenty twenty three. That June, I remember, we had a stretch of one oh six or hotter for like fifteen days or something like that. You attack on the humidity, and holy cow, it was ridiculous. So when I was out in Vegas, I got out there on Tuesday, on the Monday that barrow was hitting here, Las Vegas was hit with one hundred twenty degree temperature.
00:01:37
Speaker 1: That was a high. Oh my gosh, it was one hundred and seventeen on a Tuesday that I arrived.
00:01:46
Speaker 2: So on Wednesday, my wife and I decided to go to dinner because she met me there. We walked from the Blagio, which is where the Big Twelve had their their rooms, and we walked probably a block and a half.
00:01:58
Speaker 1: It was one hundred and thirteen at seven o'clock at night. Your shoes melt. It was ridiculous.
00:02:04
Speaker 2: However, it was weird because we got to the hotel and we weren't all sweaty. You walk that far on an August day here in Houston and you're soaked you need to shower. We were not sweaty. We just we're hot and miserable. It was midnight and it was one oh six.
00:02:18
Speaker 1: See that's the difference to me.
00:02:20
Speaker 3: It was midnight, it was one o six because in Houston, when it's hot at night, there's sort of a cooler feeling, for lack of a better way of putting it. Yeah, but what I noticed when we go to Arizona for preseason games and we're out the night before. You know, when you're in the stadium, you're fine. When we're out the night before, it feels like did somebody leave the heat on?
00:02:38
Speaker 1: Right? Did somebody leave the oven open?
00:02:40
Speaker 2: That's exactly. And you're walking around at night and it's like that. It's like you walked into a car. You get into a car, and everybody's experienced this because we do have some cold temperatures, and when people in Houston get cold temperatures, they cranked the heat on their car. Well as you're driving to your car. It eventually, once you put that heat on, it gets almost stifled, like you almost can't.
00:03:01
Speaker 1: Even breathe, Like, oh, man, turn a heat off, turn a heat off.
00:03:03
Speaker 2: Oh that's what it's like when you're walking through that. It was my wife and I just couldn't stop talking about how weird it felt, how And of course she's been living out in LA for a little bit, you know, with my daughter for a while, so she's used to that La temperature.
00:03:19
Speaker 1: Then she goes to Las Vegas. I've been out here, so I'm used to it to a degree.
00:03:23
Speaker 2: But then you get out there, Mark, I I had chapped lips the entire time I was out there.
00:03:28
Speaker 1: That's right. You just killed me. Yeah, it is. It's rough on the killer, it's rough on the epidermis.
00:03:33
Speaker 3: By the way, I hope you didn't jinx us talking about the one hundred plus temperatures of twenty twenty three because with camp coming up, I don't want to have any sort of talk like that whatsoever.
00:03:42
Speaker 2: Listen, that's just fact. It wasn't like that's just the fact that just happened in June. I'm not saying, oh, we'll never have a temperatures like that again.
00:03:52
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that. I'm just saying, this is what happens here, has been better. You know, you just did it. Oh I did you just did it. Oh.
00:03:59
Speaker 3: Hanna mcnary's to be mad at me because she thinks I jinx things sometimes she does. Well, she's concerned that. I just she's concerned. I don't know if she's convinced, but she's concerned. Right, she knows she and I are on the right side of that.
00:04:12
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:04:12
Speaker 3: You you definitely did last year that she got upset up, not really upset, I'm joking. I can't remember what it was said, something about the healthy nature of the team during something like that. That did not go over well. She's like the deep your mouth shut up at that.
00:04:27
Speaker 2: It definitely have their drink because I remember her coming over to our spot, which we will be in six days. We will be in our spot right there next to field one and cannot wait and if.
00:04:40
Speaker 1: You're coming out say hi.
00:04:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, So we'll be out there a few days without the fans, and the fans will pop out there a few days before we end up going to Ohio for the Hall of Fame induction.
00:04:51
Speaker 1: So the game, what is it, Tuesday of week two or.
00:04:54
Speaker 2: Something like that, I think so, yeah to the twenty third, Yeah, the twenty thirties that day, So the tickets went incredibly fast. So sorry about that, And I mean, you could contact me if you wanted to, but.
00:05:04
Speaker 1: I couldn't help you.
00:05:05
Speaker 2: I can't In Mark two, don't don't bother us about tickets because we can't get you any because of ticket matched up. We'd like to get you in there, but if you're there, it comes to hey to us, but not when we're talking. When we're talking, just wave, just wave. If we have the headphones often comes out in fairness to people.
00:05:23
Speaker 3: This happens all the time during radio broadcasts if well, even if you are on a PA system, they come up to you. But at training camp, especially, you're talking into the headset, they come up. Some people are saying stuff like where's the restroom? Because we're right in the middle of everything. We're we're not guests services here, but we do want to help you, and I'll just point there's the porta potty over there. Yeah, but they do come up and say hi, And that's cool because I like that.
00:05:53
Speaker 1: That means they care. Oh I do. I love it too.
00:05:55
Speaker 2: I think it gets It's almost like AirPod confusing, you know, when you see somebody in there walking and then all of a sudden they start talking and you think, oh, are they talking to me?
00:06:04
Speaker 1: Hey, how you doing?
00:06:05
Speaker 2: No, No, I'm our phone call and that happens more often than not.
00:06:10
Speaker 1: When I'm on the phone.
00:06:11
Speaker 3: I try to sometimes and I'm walking near people, I'll actually put my hand up to my ear and it shows that signal. Yeah, I'm focusing. I'm focusing on this call.
00:06:22
Speaker 1: You know, you don't want to be rude.
00:06:23
Speaker 3: Also, like restaurant guy who is on the phone really loud in front of everybody and he's alone at a table and he's projecting. Well, I thought that deal was pretty good. Hey, dude, use the phone. You don't have to speak so loudly. Yeah, use headphones. Oh you missed a good segment. The other day, Tyler Milner and I did one on enjoining room neighbors at hotels, Oh, the ones you don't want, And I got a lot of feedback on that, you know, like, yeah, a guy who talks on the phone too loud. Yeah, there's definitely that overly romantic couple.
00:07:00
Speaker 1: You know.
00:07:00
Speaker 3: We went through all of them, and there were several others that came in after hours.
00:07:04
Speaker 1: The hotel one.
00:07:05
Speaker 2: It's funny because I'm not I'm not in a lot of times bothered by or hear stuff from other rooms.
00:07:10
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm concerned all the time.
00:07:13
Speaker 2: I don't want foul smells for the most part, I mean, I don't want noise.
00:07:17
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's true. I don't know, maybe some people, some people do it, you know what.
00:07:22
Speaker 3: I don't like room that's even remotely close to the elevator shaft, even if you're on the other side of the hallway. For some reason, you hear the cables, like you know. And I'm a light sleeper, especially at a hotel, because it's the fight or flight thing.
00:07:35
Speaker 2: I'm more the airport pet peeve guy, like put your headphones in. Put your headphones in. That's all you gotta do. And here's the other one. Because I experienced this, I mean during the season is I mean, everybody kind of knows each other as we you know, travel together on our on our team flights. But getting on a plane and getting off a plane it's the most mad in the world. It's the most maddening thing in the world. I don't understand how with so many smart people we can't come up with a better process of getting people and they're stuff off a plane.
00:08:12
Speaker 3: I'm actually I'm impressed we're able to pack as many people onto planes as we do. I agree with you that with our luggage, and it just takes a long time. And a lot of people don't travel all the time, so they're not used to it. And I will say this also, I heard a comedian talk about this. Might have been Luis k. I think it's been canceled. I don't know if he's back yet from cancelation, but he had a routine about people who complain about flying. Not that you're in this group, Johnny. You are in a seat thirty thousand feet above the sky going three hundred, four hundred miles per hour and you get there safely.
00:08:44
Speaker 1: That's incredible. It's an unbelievable few hundred bucks. It's unbelievable to think. But I think about that all the time. I thought about Clark would have given a lot for that kind of stuff.
00:08:53
Speaker 2: I thought about that on Tuesday, and I thought about it again yesterday because yesterday I start my day and I'm with my wife in Vegas, and then I end the night with my son and my dogs in Houston. Like that dichotomy of where you start your day and where you end your day. It's unbelievable to think that you can end up three time zones away in just four or five hours, depending on where you're going.
00:09:20
Speaker 1: So I agree with you. I just think people's.
00:09:24
Speaker 2: What's the right way of saying this. Like, for example, I was sitting I can't remember what row I was sitting. I was like Row twenty on the flight to Vegas. The plane lands and okay, we pull up to the to the gate, plane lands, and people in rows thirty and beyond are like running up and getting in the eye.
00:09:42
Speaker 4: Wrong.
00:09:43
Speaker 1: I'm like, what are you doing? Yeah, that's really wrong.
00:09:45
Speaker 2: And this guy next to me, thankfully, he kind of understood. He kind of looked at me and chuckled as well, because I'm just like, I literally said it out loud, like we do it. I mean, we're in row twenty. We can't get you know, the people in row seven. I got to get off. It's just remarkable to have.
00:09:59
Speaker 3: A connecting flight. Did they read one of those messages? Maybe would you please let those with the connecting flights exit?
00:10:04
Speaker 2: They should have said something like, hey, I've got to get a connecting flight. I really have got to go. People get the way for that. Like I let people like two or three times pass me in the security line, like hey, go ahead, you gotta go. You gotta go like, I got no problems with that, and people just say, hey, do you want I'm like, no, wow, prop security line y, Yeah for you? Oh yeah, nice, I'll I'll be definitely nice. CBS Sports did a right up on the linebackers in the NFL. So they did the top twenty linebackers in the NFL. Where do you think they had either Christian Harris or.
00:10:36
Speaker 1: Is zizel Shire out of the top twenty? Yeah? Did they make the top twenty? That's the better question.
00:10:42
Speaker 3: These I think, based on his numbers, could make the top twenty. I don't think they'll recognize Christian just yet because he's still on the rise even though he had a great second half second part of the season, plus the postseason. Picked six in a playoff game is gonna get a lot of eyeballs. But I would say disease is somewhere probably fifteen to twenty on this NFL list.
00:11:04
Speaker 2: See, I was with your thinking. I thought that too. They did not put either one on there. They have a few that I have some questions about, but okay, that's I mean, it's fine.
00:11:15
Speaker 3: Let me ask you this about before you go there. When we do two deeps now Johnny, and you notice how they do the nickel now and Tyler and I were talking about this the other day, but I brought up, why do we even bother for four to three talking about three linebackers as starters when when they start being done? Yeah, I mean when they play less than forty percent of the time. In other words, your deal, that third linebacker is literally now in today's NFL, a situational player. That's the situation, not the nickel guy. The nickel guy isn't the situational player. He's a regular player. He's playing over sixty percent of the snaps in today's NFL. The third linebacker is only playing less than forty Yep.
00:11:59
Speaker 1: Right, you read my damn mind? Okay, because that's exactly where I was going with this. It was a couple of things.
00:12:04
Speaker 2: Number One, neither of the Texans made this top twenty list for linebackers.
00:12:09
Speaker 1: I didn't have too much of a quibble with that. I mean, I understand it.
00:12:12
Speaker 2: Disease has kind of been doing this his thing in relative obscurity because he's backing up to of the greats and Drake green Law and Fred Warner who's number one on this list, and green Laws on this list as well, and he only had one year with Tennessee where he was very very good, but that's not enough to really get enough attention to get on a list like this. Fifteen through twenty, I thought, eh, I don't know. I mean Tremaine Advance for the Bears. That was a big free to sign on. If he's good now, jokay that at fifteen he should have been at top ten. Foyle Lucan, who we know for the Jaguars at sixteen. Frankieluvu with the Commanders now at seventeenth is very very good.
00:12:45
Speaker 1: We saw him with Carolina last year. Logan Wilson eighteen.
00:12:47
Speaker 2: I love Jelani Tylai for the Patriots has been good relative obscurity. I even paced junior undrafted out of Cincinnati they have at number twenty, and he kind of projects him to be in that group. Don't have a lot of I really don't. I think disease is better than probably two or three of those guys. But you kind of brought up my point because I was having this guy. I had this conversation I think it was with Brain and Scott when I did I did Morning Show back. I think Memorial day, maybe back in May, and he he brought this up, and I thought it was an interesting point, but it kind of leads to something that you talked about. Are you concerned at all with the linebacker depth that the Texans have? And I bring that up because to your point, one of my answers was, you know your base defense. We can think about your base defense now you don't think about a four man or a four to three. What a lot of people say is, well, they play a four man surface or they're a three man surface, which is the old school four to three, you know, three four sort of thing. And I don't know that anybody is playing a third linebacker, whether it's.
00:13:55
Speaker 1: A three four four three, But it just it just feels like.
00:13:59
Speaker 2: The the linebacker position has changed so much that you don't need to have the numbers maybe you've had in the past, and maybe you can get away with, you know, five linebackers on the roster because you're.
00:14:12
Speaker 1: Only gonna play two.
00:14:13
Speaker 2: One of those guys is gonna be, like you said, the situational linebacker. But you can always play a safety or play nickel in that star position, which is what you're gonna play majority of the time.
00:14:23
Speaker 1: Anyways.
00:14:24
Speaker 3: But okay, in your five two or four to five or whatever however you want to describe it, let's look at it this way. Johnny Christian Harris and disease. Yep, if one gets hurt, right, who's playing?
00:14:41
Speaker 1: I think that's the big question. Yeah.
00:14:43
Speaker 3: Is it Jacob Phillips who we talked about because we aired his interview the other night, and that could be this year's Blake Cashman, guy who's suddenly healthy enough, and my gosh, look at the ability because he's out there, he's available. Jake Hanson, he's another player who could rise. I'm gonna say this, is it a cond I would say yes, because there's not a sure thing there if one of those two guys goes down. But I have faith in the coaching staff and in the personnel department that they came up with enough options here as a solution where it's all gonna work out. In other words, can Henry take the jump that Kristin Harris did or something similar like that. Hanson with health I think is a pretty good player. Now, Neville Hewitt can play, but he's there. He's a special team team, right, but he could still play for you if you need to I don't know about del Sean Phillips maybe.
00:15:35
Speaker 2: I mean he's he's thought to be a special team's guy. Jamal Hill is going to be interesting. And how how he fits in because of how he runs that that's gonna be one. And like you said, because that third linebacker position is more situational now than a nickel or a star is, I think the roster making for that third linebacker spot, so to speak, becomes huh, kind of doghead turned, like, man, what do we really this could be unique?
00:16:02
Speaker 1: How we use this guy?
00:16:03
Speaker 4: Well?
00:16:03
Speaker 1: And then your guy from the East West game, what's his name again?
00:16:06
Speaker 3: Eric Eric Galco? Eric Galco, who was instrumental in the kickoff rule in the XFL. He talked about the need for linebackers in the kick return game and that, look, we talked about this in a three four defense for a long time. You know, those linebackers really help with your special teams. Well, now you're looking at special teams with a premium that we haven't seen maybe ever. We don't know how to assess the kickoff right now. We know it's going to be a monumental play in games. And again it's something that yeah, people are talking about it, But I just don't know if we really know what to make up it until.
00:16:39
Speaker 1: We see it in the flesh.
00:16:41
Speaker 3: But yeah, you need linebackers to play in that phase of the game. So you're gonna need some decent, two really great special teamers, and some volume there at the linebacking corps.
00:16:52
Speaker 2: This hit me when I was in Vegas, and I just the math on it again because when I was talking Eric, that got me thinking, Wow, we are going to be the first game with those new kickoff rules.
00:17:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the first game, Guinea Pig game.
00:17:04
Speaker 2: And then today when I was walking in, I started thinking, that's also the first game where we're gonna see our new uniforms.
00:17:10
Speaker 1: Man, that's gonna be a wild, a wild night. Well, I don't know this what color they wear?
00:17:15
Speaker 3: I know that's what I was thinking. Which one the road UNI, it's not a road game. It's a neutral site game.
00:17:20
Speaker 5: Right.
00:17:21
Speaker 3: You might be in your home uniform. Right, It's definitely not gonna be h Town blue or battle red.
00:17:25
Speaker 4: We know that.
00:17:26
Speaker 2: I tell you what, if there's a screw up, it's gonna look at innsquad scrimmage.
00:17:29
Speaker 6: I know, bears and guard detail, squad scrip like blue black blue it is. But yeah, I thought about that, man, that is a wild night.
00:17:41
Speaker 2: The new Uniformstrey's going in the Hall of Fame, new kickoff rules, and then obviously, you know, unveiling the team for the first time, and we know what that game, we're probably you know, probably not gonna see c J. There's gonna you're gonna see a lot of the the twos, the threes, the fours, et cetera. But it's gonna be a really good opportunity for those guys. But unveiling that kickoff rule is gonna be.
00:18:00
Speaker 1: I am pumped for that one.
00:18:02
Speaker 3: I am so for all these preseason games, not just because a it's Texans twenty twenty four and we're off and running, but the Hall of Fame game for everything you just described, the environment, all the Texans fans that are gonna be there. There's gonna be a ton of Texans fans in that building that night for that game, and obviously for the induction ceremony on Saturday. And I don't know about that dinner on Friday. I guess that's an exclusive event. Who knows, you and I will be live for Texans all access to that Friday night between the game and the ceremony, but also a week later at Pittsburgh.
00:18:33
Speaker 1: I just and I know you feel the same way. I love going to Pittsburgh.
00:18:36
Speaker 3: I love it and playing the Steelers, storied franchise in their building. Yeah, you're not at three Rivers. You're at a better stadium. You're at the former Heinz Field.
00:18:45
Speaker 7: You know.
00:18:46
Speaker 2: Weird it was when we went there in twenty I was so excited. Steelers on his schedule. I when I went there in fourteen, it was my first time I had been to Pittsburgh. But that night football, Monday night football, we don't do well. But I loved it.
00:19:00
Speaker 1: I had got to walk the city, went to Fromanni Brothers. I loved it.
00:19:04
Speaker 2: It was was in October. I think it was gorgeous weather. I mean, what an environment Monday night. It was really cool. So you go back there in twenty twenty, it's covid. There's not a soul in that stadium.
00:19:17
Speaker 1: Or anywhere downtown. I would have been anywhere nowhere. We just we basically were hold up in our room. Yeah, it was wait, are you go outside and go for a walk?
00:19:25
Speaker 5: No?
00:19:27
Speaker 1: Really, I didn't go outside, didn't do anything. Now, we were also playing that game at noon too.
00:19:30
Speaker 2: Oh so its noon as well, I should say, so I didn't really you know, the Monday night game.
00:19:35
Speaker 1: I had all kinds of time in the morning to go down and went to P and C.
00:19:38
Speaker 3: And this is going to sound a little morbid, but Pittsburgh, We've been there several times in about Texans history, and I've been there for college basketball as well. Yeah, back in the day you walk downtown, there are these old churches right right in the thick of everything with graveyards in front, with ravestones from the early eighteen hundreds of late seventeen.
00:19:58
Speaker 1: I think at the late that's wild. I don't know.
00:20:01
Speaker 3: I like looking at that stuff because I think about people's lives and what they did, and I read the tombstone.
00:20:07
Speaker 2: And it just adds to the history of the city to me, which I yeah, you're right, it does sound a little bit more of in some sense, but it's historical and it's in some sense celebrating those people.
00:20:18
Speaker 1: I think that's really cool, to be honest with you.
00:20:20
Speaker 3: But three rivers merging and Pittsburgh is a great, hallowed American city.
00:20:24
Speaker 2: Yes, very cool city that it wasn't really until fourteen that I was like, Wow, this voice is great. Really just didn't understand how great it was. So we'll have that and then we come back home for two games. I'll take place at twelve noon, so make sure because I know preseason clocks for people are a little different. You know, we get to wait till seven o'clock to see the game on TV or see it live and Energy state.
00:20:46
Speaker 3: No, the game will be at new I'm gonna throw something at you right now, okay, because here's something worth watching.
00:20:52
Speaker 1: And I don't know what's gonna happen.
00:20:53
Speaker 3: I haven't taught to anybody, but with the damage to the roof, which is no secret. Everyone's seen the video and everything like that, I don't know how they're going to get it done in time. There is some time, but there are also needs of resources and people to do the.
00:21:11
Speaker 1: Work and things like that.
00:21:12
Speaker 3: I'm not sure how they're going to fix it, or if they're able to fix it the way that they fixed it following the eight season, when they had to leave the roof open for the entire campaign. Now the circus was supposed to be in here next week, they're done. They canceled the event, so shoul. They have insurance for that and things like that, but it's too bad the circus and kids and tickets and all that. But I'm wondering how that is going to affect Texans games, especially early, because once you get through the preseason games, all right, you're playing a night game week two, you're on the road week three, and then what do you back to back at home? I think, but it hardly cools off to sixty five degrees and beautiful in early October, So we'll see how it all goes. I am not sure how they're going to handle it. I don't know if they know how they're going to handle it, because there are other priorities in the city right now. But that is worth watching to see how it affects Texans games.
00:22:07
Speaker 1: I mean, if the roof has got to be open for a noon preseason game, I don't.
00:22:11
Speaker 3: I wonder, like I look at it now, or look at the videos and photos that we've seen, the aerial shots from the news media, and I'm thinking, could you just leave it like that? Run the ac? I know you're leaking ac like crazy and you're running up the electric I don't know. It's easy for me to say themist you're okay, turn it out to seventy three instead of seventy one or whatever you normally have it. And I don't know, there's a little dial somewhere, you know, Hey, who'll mess with the thermist?
00:22:39
Speaker 7: That?
00:22:39
Speaker 5: No?
00:22:39
Speaker 1: That does Well, here's the other thing too, just given the damage.
00:22:42
Speaker 2: And I don't know the full construction of it, but I mean there are there are you know, open area, like can you can you close the roof because of I don't know. I don't know the roof is closed right now? What do you so you know, I mean open the room? Can you open it without having issues?
00:23:00
Speaker 4: I don't know.
00:23:00
Speaker 1: I mean it's a great question. I don't know.
00:23:01
Speaker 3: So it's gonna yeh, You're right, that is definitely gonna be. It's a story worth watching, no doubt. You know you're going to be hearing a bunch about that as we get closer. There's a Zach Bryan concert as well, July twenty ninth. I don't know what they're gonna do about that either, So I'm sure we're going to hear about that soon. So the circus I think needs total darkness, yeah, to function, and they have day shows, so I think that along with the safety.
00:23:24
Speaker 1: What have you got? Well, think about it.
00:23:26
Speaker 2: Think about a playoff game that we have here, and the shadows that are created and they're doing the trapees swinging and all of a sudden, you're going from one dark day. You know, it's like trying to hit a ring we field with the shadows going to grab the bar.
00:23:38
Speaker 1: But I saw a shotow it. Uh yeah.
00:23:43
Speaker 2: Luckily in Las Vegas, Ellegia Stadium is covered and it was nice and cool for me to catch up with my counterpart, basically the me and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. My buddy TJ. Reeves was covering the Big twelve for tune in. But obviously we talked Bucks, we talked NFL, we talked TJ. Strout and Baker Mayfield. And we'll do that next right here, tech, what's happening, everybody? Welcome back to this edition of Texans All Acts as a Friday edition from that Texans Radio studio.
00:24:06
Speaker 1: So glad to be back home in Houston.
00:24:10
Speaker 2: I have your host John Harris football on a sideline reporter and I know a lot of you are still struggling hopefully, you know, just talking ball and just listening to Mark and I talkball, and our next guest talk ball. Maybe that's just enough to give you a couple of minutes of hey man, just checking out, just thinking football, and that's cool. If that's the that's the the least we can do, then fantastic. But hopefully you guys are getting power back. And I know there's another rainstorm today that was pretty pretty rugged. So everybody hangs strong, as they say, Houston strong, stay tough, and we'll get past this as we always do and be the city that we have grown into, which is one that carries universal respect, even all the way down in Tampa Bay, where the Buccaneers were that cried in their beer a little bit eboor city last.
00:24:56
Speaker 1: Year as the Texans CJ.
00:24:58
Speaker 2: Strouden tanked out put them to last year with a touchdown that just on a drive that was just I don't know how you just how do you describe last year's with over the Buccaneers.
00:25:10
Speaker 1: Well, I had to bring it up with our next guest, and I didn't. I didn't think I was going to see him at all. TJ.
00:25:15
Speaker 2: Reeves is the sideline reporter for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He does a tremendous job covering them. He covers college basketball, boxing, every sport.
00:25:25
Speaker 1: He knows it well.
00:25:26
Speaker 4: He got a call to.
00:25:27
Speaker 2: Cover Big twelve Media Days for tune In with a new media deal that tune In has done with the Big twelve, and so when I saw him, I was like, man, what do you do in here? He kind of said the same thing to me. But we were We were happy to see each other, happy to talk some ball. We talked about that Buccaneers game. So you know, let's dive in.
00:25:46
Speaker 1: It's my buddy TJ Reeves and I at Big twelve Media Days. Let's go all right. I gotta admit there are a lot of people.
00:25:53
Speaker 2: I didn't think I was going to run into here at Big twelve Media Days, but I run in one of my good friends. He is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers version of me, but better. It's my guy TJ Reeves.
00:26:04
Speaker 1: TJ.
00:26:05
Speaker 2: What are you doing here for Big twelve Media Days? You're like the last person I thought would be here. Now I'm glad to see you. Don't get me wrong, but I looked over here and I was like, what the hell's he doing here?
00:26:14
Speaker 5: Let's go on.
00:26:15
Speaker 7: You know, I tend to get around, you know, wherever in Florida, Vegas, whatever it takes, Pluto, am I to take that as a good thing that I'm you and you're me with the Texans and the Buccaneers.
00:26:25
Speaker 5: Is that a good thing?
00:26:25
Speaker 1: It's a bad thing for you, It's a good thing for me.
00:26:27
Speaker 5: Okay, I'm just checking on that. Listen.
00:26:29
Speaker 7: I've gotten a fantastic opportunity here recently because tune In Online Goliath Digital outlet has done a deal with the Big Twelve Conference as the new exclusive digital home of the Big Twelve, and so we'll pull the curtain back a little bit. I got a phone call last week from my former boss, Kevin Strelei because the deal had come together that quickly, that hey, we're gonna have availability and access for coaches and players in this now sixteen team lead to come get interviews that we will use for this channel for the upcoming season in the preview mode. Can you be here and be part of this? And I have that mentality, like you have that mentality of when certain people call you and say I need something from you. If I'm able, I'm gonna be here here. I am in Las Vegas a week later, my friend.
00:27:18
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Very very cool.
00:27:20
Speaker 2: We're gonna talk about the Bucks here in a little bit, but just your opportunity to talk with all the coaches and the players.
00:27:25
Speaker 4: How cool was that?
00:27:26
Speaker 1: And I gotta ask, how was it for Coach Prime to sit next to you?
00:27:29
Speaker 7: Okay, so a lot of it is a blur because we're doing this after it just happened. And I literally talked to fifteen of the sixteen coaches. I talked literally to probably forty or fifty players from the sixteen schools.
00:27:45
Speaker 5: So it was fascinating to learn these stories.
00:27:47
Speaker 7: I mean, bear in mind, you guys along with in Houston, along with UCF and Cincinnati and BYU were new last year, and now you got four more in Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Arizona State. There are new that's eight new teams in the league in two years. So this is a lot to get used to for everybody. So I found it fascinating. And you mentioned Coach Prime in Colorado. They were very end of day two here that they came to us, and I found him fascinating. He was engaging, He understands there are a lot of eyes on them, there are a lot of arrows pointed at them. He continues to repeat that the change that they have made in roster in coordinators will benefit them. I see the look on your face, and we've already been talking about this.
00:28:33
Speaker 5: The proof in that is are.
00:28:34
Speaker 7: They going to be any better on the field, because if they're not, there are all kinds of people that are going to come out of the caves and the weeds and everywhere else after them because of the notoriety and the attention that a lot of people believe at this point some I won't say a lot believe isn't warranted for having a one to.
00:28:53
Speaker 5: Eight finish to last season.
00:28:55
Speaker 7: So we'll find out if their new roster, their new coordinators make something different. But I thought, here, I don't know what your impression was. I thought Dion coach Prime was saying a lot of the right things about trying to be different or better this year.
00:29:08
Speaker 1: I think so on I think he's got a lot of connections to this conference.
00:29:11
Speaker 2: He started his press conference talking about Joey Maguire, who coached his son in high school, and talk about Gus Malzan who recruited Shador, And I mean, he talked about a number of coaches and he's like, those are just ones I can come up at the top of my head.
00:29:22
Speaker 1: I mean, he's compelling.
00:29:24
Speaker 2: When he went up there to speak, he was the first coach to speak at the start of day two at the big podium, everybody was over there.
00:29:30
Speaker 7: I can verify for having been here yesterday because I don't think you were here yesterday when most of those coaches were talking.
00:29:36
Speaker 5: There were some that were in there.
00:29:39
Speaker 7: And to your point, when they introduced him, there were dozens, three or four dozens that walked to that area to be engaged to hear what he has to say. But now, ultimately, this is what we do. This is the fun we have. What does that mean come September, October, November on, are they going to be any better? Sure you can win Prescot Conference is sure, you win the social media, the impressions, the likes, whatever. But if you don't win the football games, this stuff isn't gonna last much longer.
00:30:09
Speaker 5: The hype, the hype, it doesn't last much longer.
00:30:11
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's talk about our two main jobs. Last year, at this time, both and I were to sit down, You and I were to sit down and talk and said, Okay, how's your team going to be in twenty three, it would.
00:30:21
Speaker 1: Have been I don't know. You got a rookie quarterback. You've got Baker Mayfield.
00:30:26
Speaker 5: I don't know.
00:30:27
Speaker 1: I don't know.
00:30:27
Speaker 2: Then we sat there and met in week nine in one of the games of the year, which was absolutely incredible.
00:30:32
Speaker 7: Will remind me again about CJ. Stroud for the win in the final twenty seconds. I think I got over that about fifteen minutes ago.
00:30:38
Speaker 1: I listen, is still a game for you.
00:30:40
Speaker 5: It was a good postgame show for you. Try being me after that game.
00:30:44
Speaker 2: Okay, but I think you found a lot out about Baker Mayfield that game because I was down in the end zone on that throat to and at the end of the game. That's as good as throw as that was made all day long, as CG made some incredible ones. You guys bounce back from that end up getting to the playoffs. What was it that run like through that game? But then getting back to the playoffs in twelve?
00:31:02
Speaker 5: They showed something after that.
00:31:04
Speaker 7: You're absolutely right, because they could have folded down the stretch of the season and a lot of people's belief was this is a two, three, maybe four win team. Now this is maybe easy to say for your audience in Houston. I was proclaiming from the mountaintop that is bs. There are too many talented players, too much will to win for this to be a three or four win situation. Maybe it's not going to be a nine to ten or eleven win situation, but it's not going to be three or four wins. And lo and Behold, go to Atlanta and win in the final seconds on another mayfield touchdown to kay Dot and go to.
00:31:40
Speaker 5: Green Bay and win in December.
00:31:42
Speaker 7: Franchise in their history had never won in December in like fifteen tries at Lambo, including the playoffs. Won a game in December and then won the division in a game that was ugly field goal fest, a low scoring game, got in the playoffs and won a playoff game against the Eagles, where anything can happen in the postseason after many people believe the season was going to be over by Halloween. So the interesting thing is now come around to this year. It starts anew, It starts zero zero in the win loss column. And what does last year ultimately mean? What do you build on We don't know that, but there will be much more expectation. There are many people that believe the Bucks will be better this year, just like the Texans. Texans make the playoffs, so you're there's higher expectation this year. You're not somebody that's an afterthought.
00:32:29
Speaker 1: So let's talk about that.
00:32:30
Speaker 2: Baker Mayfield comes back, Mike Evans returns, and there was a lot of talk Mike being from Galveston.
00:32:35
Speaker 1: There's a lot of talk the Texans.
00:32:36
Speaker 2: Going out and getting Mic and putting him with Tank and with Nico, and then the Bucks snapped him back, snatched him back for two years. What are their additions the Bucks made? How'd you like to draft? What do you think about the Bucks in twenty four?
00:32:47
Speaker 7: So the first thing is they had a tremendous free agency by keeping the guys you just mentioned Mayfield and Evans, and I will add Anchwan Winfield, the.
00:32:56
Speaker 1: Final man the Woodlands. Yes, we wanted him to.
00:33:00
Speaker 7: And so those three guys re sign and general manager Jason Light is like, we had a tremendous free agency class and we didn't leave the eight one to three area code to keep.
00:33:08
Speaker 5: Those guys in Tampa Bay.
00:33:10
Speaker 7: And so now you couple that with a draft and we're, you know, we're very intrigued to see what's going to unfold out of these draft classes. Because we've talked about Kadott, and we've mentioned Rashad White, the running back out of a mid round draft selection. Yai YadA Vi, a pass rusher, has been tremendous out.
00:33:30
Speaker 5: Of the mid rounds.
00:33:31
Speaker 7: And so this team goes and gets a big offensive lineman in Graham Barton, a road grater as an interior offensive lineman out of Duke. They go in the second round and get a pass rusher from Alabama. Have we heard of Nick Saban having guys drafted in the first and second round? My god, it's literally over fifty five players drafted under Nick Saban in the first or second round. So Chris braswell as the pass rusher. So you've added some components. I love the little speedy back Bucky err out of Oregon. This dude small Warwick Dunn reminder, little scat back, speed guy, catch the ball out.
00:34:08
Speaker 5: Of the backfield.
00:34:09
Speaker 7: So you've you've got some components out of this draft that I think we're eager to see, even in guys that you took in some later rounds of the draft that can maybe help this team.
00:34:18
Speaker 4: TJ.
00:34:19
Speaker 1: Reeves covers the Bucks sideline.
00:34:21
Speaker 2: He is the John Harrison Tampa Bay, which is not a good thing for him, but that is the truth. Covering to Big Twelve here man, it's great to see you, my brother. We won't see you this year, but we'll definitely see down road.
00:34:30
Speaker 3: Mail.
00:34:31
Speaker 1: We'll talk soon.
00:34:31
Speaker 7: Anytime that you need me, And even though this was unexpected, anytime that you need me, I'm there for you. And listen, you got to enjoy a tremendous season. I felt for you the same way that all of us that are going through bad season after bad season want to see playoffs, want to see better team, better locker room. Everybody's in a better mood, food taste better, you sleep better. Everybody gets along when you win. So I'm thrilled for you that you got the playoff experience last year that we got. Let's have again this year if we can, if we can wish for it.
00:35:02
Speaker 5: Let's do it.
00:35:03
Speaker 2: I am all for it.
00:35:04
Speaker 1: TJ the best man.
00:35:05
Speaker 5: Thank you, John.
00:35:06
Speaker 1: Great to be with your brother, Yeah, man, great dude, does this stuff. Love getting a chance to talk to TJ.
00:35:11
Speaker 2: Reeves Tampay buccaneer, salient reporter and covered the Big Twelve for Tune In this past week at Media.
00:35:18
Speaker 1: Days, all Right closed up on a Friday. I thought we'd had some fun Drew Doerty and I did it.
00:35:22
Speaker 2: End the LAB episode that really had some people talking about the concept of adding former Houston professional players to this twenty twenty.
00:35:33
Speaker 1: Four a roster.
00:35:34
Speaker 2: Look, this roster is much different than it has been. But we've been doing this project, if you will, for a while. So we had each come up with two players that we would add onto this current roster.
00:35:45
Speaker 1: I think you'll like them, So let's play an nextra here in textuntil Access.
00:35:51
Speaker 2: We were one final segment of this Friday edition that Texas All Access coming at you. I'm John Harris for Silent Reporter, one half of the end of Lab podcast. The other half, well my better half podcast wise Drew Doherty. We sat down and we came up with two each, four total players that played Houston professional football that we would put on this roster.
00:36:11
Speaker 8: Let's go twenty twenty four Texans of pretty Salty. We're excited about them, are they No? Have they won any games yet?
00:36:18
Speaker 5: No?
00:36:19
Speaker 8: But as they're constructed right now in June. Who from a professional Houston football team? Who is retired? So no current players or no players that work in Houston that are ping ponging around the the league. A retired Houston professional football players, So it could be a gambler, it could be an oiler, could be a former Texan which to former Houston professionals, would you want.
00:36:53
Speaker 4: To add to this team? I get to go first. I'm taking a royal Campbell busted.
00:36:56
Speaker 5: Ooh oh oh wow.
00:36:59
Speaker 1: Didn't even give me a.
00:37:00
Speaker 4: Chance to bring chance.
00:37:02
Speaker 8: You gotta and I'm putting you on the defensive here, but it's obvious to me. Hey, Joe Mixon, you're you're really good back and there are intriguing things ahead for you. Damian Pierce, same deal. How about you you are, Jordan how about you Daria Goal?
00:37:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, all of you. You're not getting kicked off the island.
00:37:21
Speaker 8: You're merely adding maybe the greatest professional football player in the history of Houstons First.
00:37:28
Speaker 4: One of the first.
00:37:29
Speaker 8: Plays that Earl Campbell ever had. It was at Atlanta and he takes a pass and what goes eighty yards for a touchdown.
00:37:36
Speaker 4: Yep, that's pretty cool. It's on YouTube. Check that out. But give me Earl.
00:37:40
Speaker 8: Campbell in this offense. Earl Campbell would look pretty darn nice with CJ and Stefan and Nico.
00:37:49
Speaker 5: So here we go.
00:37:50
Speaker 1: It's a friend of ours. If I were to ask you just point blank, Drew a friend of ours, a friend of ours.
00:37:56
Speaker 2: Like the biggest gap or biggest hole that this team has offensively, just right off the bat, what is it?
00:38:05
Speaker 4: Biggest hole offensively, the.
00:38:07
Speaker 1: Biggest question mark that were just unsure.
00:38:10
Speaker 4: About, maybe left guard.
00:38:13
Speaker 2: That's exactly right, and that's why I am going with our buddy Wade Smith number one. Now, again, there are changes by eras throughout eras and how you do things.
00:38:26
Speaker 1: This offense is very similar.
00:38:29
Speaker 2: But one of the things that you cannot do that you used to be able to do, and actually Wade was very very good at this, was to cut guys on the backside.
00:38:37
Speaker 1: He was so agile and so good that he could just chop guys down in the back end.
00:38:43
Speaker 2: And that allowed Arion Foster a lot of cut up runs back behind his center, back behind Wade. When runs that would go right, they would come back left behind what Wade was doing. But there's so much to Wade. He's very good in his own scheme. I think Wade is one heck of a leader. I think he'd have the absolute right meanor to help Juice Scruggs next to him to be able to work with Laramie Tunsel. I think Wade Smith would fit his own scheme. I think he would fit this locker room. I would go with Wade Smith all day, every day. He jumps right into the left guard where he was very comfortable, where he turned into.
00:39:16
Speaker 1: A pro bowler, became a pro bowler while he was here.
00:39:19
Speaker 2: With the Texans.
00:39:20
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, a little bit undersize, but he never.
00:39:23
Speaker 2: You wouldn't watch a game and go, oh, he's getting his butt kicked because he's too small. I mean, Wade never got his butt kicked. And he would tell you he wasn't as heavy as some other guys. But that dude had great technique. He was quick and agile, He was a tremendous athlete, and he was a leader in the locker room without being this, you know how, my chest sort of guy. He was just very you know, he was very quick to pull guys aside and tell him this is the way we do it. And I just would I would love his demeanor on this offensive line and on this offense in general.
00:39:59
Speaker 1: I just I think there are a lot of guys. You know, we've seen him, They've they've got some fire.
00:40:03
Speaker 2: And Wade's got fired, but he just has it and channels it in a little bit different way. So I'm going with Wade Smith right off the bat. So we've had to Earl Campbell and Wade Smith to this offense.
00:40:13
Speaker 1: So my gosh, look out.
00:40:15
Speaker 4: Good choice there.
00:40:16
Speaker 8: Now, since I was a big jerk and took Earl Campbell right off the bat, didn't let you, didn't let you have a say, we'll do We'll do snake in this one. So you can go again, who else professional football player from the city or played for a City of Houston team. Who would you add to this current twenty four squad?
00:40:37
Speaker 2: Well, I feel like there's an obvious answer, and I don't know if I'm gonna.
00:40:44
Speaker 8: I want to obvious matches with my obvious Well, I'm gonna take ninety nine. Okay, that wasn't the obvious one that I had, but that is, Yeah, that could always be a good one.
00:40:56
Speaker 2: And I don't need there's a part of me that doesn't want to doesn't want to say it because maybe he doesn't stay retired.
00:41:06
Speaker 1: I don't know.
00:41:06
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't want to kick over that that uh that fire ant mound again. Uh, like it got kicked over back in February and March when everybody's like, oh.
00:41:15
Speaker 1: He's coming back, and then the miko's got.
00:41:17
Speaker 2: To answer questions and JJ's on podcast answered questions and you know, it's stirs everything up. I don't know that I really truly want to do that, but but my my thought process is one like this, when you said, go.
00:41:28
Speaker 4: Ahead, you're going best player, yeah this one.
00:41:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, my my first thought was, Okay, I'm not totally sure just yet what this defensive interior on a three down basis is going to look like. And I say that, but I think that Fatukasi and Settle are gonna be better than people think. That's that's that's my assessment. But I feel like if you were to put JJ in that group and just let him play the three technique and let him play in this defense where he can just penetrate and get up field, that's what he did anyways when he was playing inside. Now, I know there were times JJ was like, I don't I don't really want to play inside. And I didn't blame him because there were you know, two two and a half blockers responsible for him on almost every play, and that's a that's a pain physically and mentally to kind of deal with all the time.
00:42:25
Speaker 1: And so he wanted to be on the outside where he could use his as you call.
00:42:29
Speaker 2: It, his jungle cat skills to get one on one against pastra, to get against offensive tackles or even tight ends in some cases. And so I know he didn't want to play in there permanently, but I think in his defense, you know, even with Daniel Hunter and Will Anderson, you know those two guys actually can go bounce inside if he need him to. There are a lot of different combinations that you could you could throw. But imagine a pass rush that's got Daniel Hunter and Will Anderson on the outside and Deniico Autry and JJ.
00:42:58
Speaker 1: Watt on the inside.
00:42:59
Speaker 2: I mean, in all honesty, those are all four guys that you would say, if they were on four separate teams, who are you going to double this week? Well, we're gonna double Will. No, we're gonna double Daniel. No, we're gonna double Watt, and we're gonna double Autry. You know, those would be the guys that you'd want to double or chip on if they're outside, you might, as the Patriots did against JJ, you would send your running back not to the outside to help with your tackles, but wherever JJ.
00:43:26
Speaker 1: Is, that running back is gonna go help. Well, if you do that against this pass rush, all of.
00:43:30
Speaker 2: A sudden, here's there's Daniko one on one against the guard, which he can win with quickness, hands, strength, and then you've got your two edge guys that can win.
00:43:38
Speaker 1: So I'm not totally sure that I want.
00:43:42
Speaker 2: JJ every single play playing inside, but I do feel like having him give me the opportunity if I if I get thirty plays out of JJ in a game, and he's getting some inside you know, he plays across from Settle on some plays, he plays across from Fat too Costi on others. You know, maybe there's an opportunity for he and Khalil Davis to be out there together together with the guys you have on the outside.
00:44:08
Speaker 1: There's a lot of different things you can do with JJ because of that flexibility and that versatility.
00:44:13
Speaker 2: Is funny because versatility kind of became this word in the mid twenty tens that people hated hearing because it oftentimes got stamped on the guys that would line up at different positions but weren't very good at any of them. Well, JJ lined up at every position on the defensive line. He was dominanting all of them.
00:44:29
Speaker 4: And so I'm gonna go with all pro and what twelve and fourteen?
00:44:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, we see all Pro two different positions. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's incredible. So I'm gonna go.
00:44:40
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go to ninety nine. And the scary thing in some sense is that maybe it happens.
00:44:47
Speaker 1: I don't know.
00:44:47
Speaker 2: I was watching JJ's soccer highlights the other day, Drew and he was playing in some TSD seven on seven tournament and it.
00:44:56
Speaker 1: Was kind of comical. But yet JJ was the best athlete on a feel. He looked amazing.
00:45:02
Speaker 2: I mean, the things he was doing in soccer, diving headers, I mean, he just incredible.
00:45:07
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:45:09
Speaker 2: So you know, if he decides to come back at some point and all those guys are healthy, what I just outlined, those four pass rushers being on the field would be like a be a dream for Texans fans in some respects. All right, you finish it up, but your final one.
00:45:24
Speaker 4: We haven't picked anybody in the secondary.
00:45:26
Speaker 8: And there's a Pro Football Famer who in fourteen years, he had sixty takeaways, had twenty one fumble recoveries in his career. He had forty nine interceptions in his career. In nine of forty nine he took to the house for a touchdown. He also took back a fumble recovery for score, so he scored ten touchdowns on defense. And he also he returned to punt for a score in nineteen seventy four. We're talking about Ken Houston now different times, yes, but simply for his impact and who he was, his playmaking ability, I got to put him back there.
00:46:10
Speaker 4: And no, we're not shoving anybody.
00:46:12
Speaker 8: No Jimmy Ward is getting nobody's getting cut, but he's there in the mix with those guys. I'm gonna add a Pro Football Hall of Famer to the back end of the defense.
00:46:20
Speaker 4: You had a Pro Football Hall of Famer to the front end.
00:46:23
Speaker 8: JJ's going in, can't and whenever it's all over, add one guy at the very back. He played for the Oilers in the sixties and early seventies and then played on a very fine Washington squad for a good chunk of the nineteen seventies. So gimme Ken Houston and When I started here with the Texans in two thousand and nine, I saw Ken Houston around the team quite a bit. It was a Texans Ambassador. Now it's called the Texans Legends Program, and that's an NFL wide thing everyone in the NFL. It's mandated by league. If you played for a team, you are there. You are a legend for that team. If you played in one game, you played in one stap for a game, or if you're like JJ Watt and you're one of the best in franchise, doesn't matter. You're a legend for that team. So he was in that Ambassador program, which kind of is the precursor of the Legends program that we have now. Saw him at a lot of community events, saw him here at games, interacted with him. He's a fascinating dude. He's one of the best to do it. He did it a long time ago. So the further you get away from some guy's playing career, the lesson the younger generation knows about him.
00:47:27
Speaker 4: But this guy think about it. Sixty takeaways in his career.
00:47:32
Speaker 2: Earl Campbell, Waite, Smith, JJ Watt, Ken Houston, we did a great job, and you guys did a great job.
00:47:37
Speaker 1: For listening.
00:47:38
Speaker 2: We will see you on Monday. Y'all stay safe over the weekend. Big thanks everybody to participate on the show, Mark Drew. All you guys are listening. We'll see tomorrow and as always, go Texans.
