The Killer B's: Joel Blank & Jeremy Branham
09/11 Hour 3 - What's the Texans Biggest Weakness?
His ESPN 97 5, brought to you by Zada Jewelers. KFNC 979HD 2, Mark W. Houston, a gal media station. Don't sweat technique. [Music] You're locked in with a Killer B's on ESPN 97 5 at 92 5. Live in the Ferratex Community Bank Studios, here's Joel Blanket, Jeremy Brannon. All right, back! 60 minutes left to go on the show. We got two in the books, one to go as we continue to try and take care of you guys in so many different ways. We're going to do that right now by doing a little giveaway for you. We know Saturday, this is coming Saturday. We got the big inner city rivalry. We got UH taking on the rice owls for that Bayou bucket. We're going to be celebrating Houston with this hometown rivalry. It's going to be a night of thrilling plays, hard-ending action, and unforgettable moments. Tickets are just 15 bucks. You can go to ufhcoogers.com/tickets or call 713-Go-Koops that's C-O-O-G-S. Now to get your tickets, come early, feel out, wear red. We're actually going to give you a chance to win some tickets to that game. So we're going to take call number 5 right now, 713-780-3776. You call us. We get you two tickets to the Cougar game if you're number 5. Good luck and go Cougs! Jeremy would do that and then he would also tell you that he's also available in- Our beloved Cougs! Alright, before we get into anything else, Terry's on hold. He wants to talk about Texans. Let's get Terry in here. Terry, what's on your mind today? Hey guys, just a little reaction after week one. I called in last week and actually predicted a 12-5 season and a lot of success. Very impressed with week one. I think we gave him 10 points to help you watch the whole game. They just really look good and how great is it at the end of the game when you need to run out the clock or get a score? I felt, yeah, this is great. CJ is going to do it. And the five games that we lose, a couple of those are going to be that we should have won. There's going to be a couple of games also that we win and I think people might have thought us is going to lose. And if a couple of those happens to be Detroit, Dallas and Dallas or Kansas City or Baltimore, Miami, you've got all these playoff teams and if we pull off a couple there, look good against them, barring injuries, we roll into the playoffs, man. Hey, do you want to do it? I'm not betting against the Texans at least today at the championship game. Well, that's fair, Terry, and I appreciate the call. Look, I think the biggest thing when you start analyzing this team is we're only one week into the season. And yeah, Joe Nixon looks phenomenal, but he's a veteran running back and we've talked about it with multiple guests amongst ourselves as well, where we said, hey, look, you can't overuse him. You don't want to run him into the ground. It's much like a pitcher and kind of keeping his innings down for the year because you need him at the end of the season. It's way more important than what you do in week one. The Bengals look bad in week one. There were teams that the Jets didn't look great in week one. The Texans looked pretty good, but we also had people that were critiquing the Texans thinking they didn't beat as good of a Colts team as we may have thought the Colts to be. So now you got to go week to week and you got to kind of just continue to gauge where this team's at. For week one of the regular season, I was ecstatic. I loved what I saw. I'm encouraged that this team can keep this thing going all year long. But I've also been a guy that's been huge on the fact that this is a very, very tough schedule. It's a first place schedule. You're going to play a lot better teams than you played a year ago. And that's why 12 and five, I thought, was just too grandiose of a prediction because of the fact that you're going to be playing so many good teams. I like where your heads at. You're going to win some games you're supposed to lose. You're going to lose some games you're supposed to win. Last year, they won a lot of close games that you don't know from year to year if you're going to be able to consistently be able to do. That's why, too, I think that that's something that you have to take into consideration and go, "Look, the window is going to be wide open for a long time with this group, but this year might not be the year they go 12 and five unless you're Brian McDonald." Who do you say he's not going to go 12 and five? Terry's just said that he thought the tech. He said last week he's doubling down that Texas are going 12 and five. Okay, so I had 11 and six pre-season and one of my wins was the Colts, so I'm not going to jump above that yet because, you know, look, it was a great win. It was exciting. It came down to the end. There's a lot of things to be excited about. Joe Mixon, obviously, you have a quarterback. You've got three great rider series. You feel good about your past wrestlers, but there's still things. We have to see them show up. We have to see, like, we all expect that the offensive line gets short up in the past protection. We talked about it. Like, these are coachable, correctable things. They weren't getting manhandled other than that one play that by Titus Howard, he got shoved into CJ Sprout. So, I have confidence that gets fixed. I have confidence that the past coverage gets fixed, although I do have concerns about Jimmy Ward in deep coverage, but, like we were talking about earlier in the week, it felt like a game plan thing where they wanted to keep the players close to the line, keep everything tight, take away the easy throws from Anthony Richardson, try to take away the run, and force him to beat you deep with accuracy, and he wasn't able to do so other than that past to Alec Pierce, where Jimmy Ward was, again, encouraged. So, there are some things to show up, but I have confidence in them doing so, but I still need to see them do it before I'd be willing to jump up my record, so I'm still sticking at 11-6. Yeah, I thought nine wins before the season. I'll be the first to say... I don't know how we went through the schedule. You came to 10. That's true. Well, either nine or ten, I would... Are you now at 10? I would lean 10 now, simply from what I saw in week one. I know that it's a long season, but I know after week one, the fact that Joe Mixon thoroughly backed me up and had my back... Yeah, you were right. You were right. And from that perspective, the fact that I feel like the offense can only get better, the line surprised me in how good they looked in week one with a decent front line from the Colts, and then from the defensive perspective, I believe in D'Amico. I believe they're going to work things out and figure some things out on the defensive side of the football. So, they're going to be competitive with all the good teams they're going to play, and I consider them to be a good team. So, I feel better after week one than I did going into the season because of what I saw and the fact that there's still a high enough ceiling that they can get better, if that makes sense. Yeah, no, there's a lot of places that get better. We talked about them. Obviously, the deep coverage, the past blocking. And I think there was some... I mean, not that CJ was bad. He was great, but there were still some throws there that could have been a little bit better. Obviously, we talked about the play where he got pressured and kind of chunked it over to the sideline, and thankfully the guy was standing out of bounds when he caught it, but it could have very easily been the interception there. He had another interception that got called back because of defensive holding in the secondary. So, there were still some mistakes, and we saw that from CJ last year as well. We talked about it a million times, but he threw five interceptions, could have easily had eight or nine. He made more mistakes in the interception total would show you. So, I think those are still things that can be cleaned up, and because of that, there's still another level that I think they can get to. I had this as an 11-win team, but CJ cleans that up. The pass protection starts picking up the stunts and twists better. The deep coverage gets a little more short up. Maybe you get, obviously, guys back, like Christian Harris and Danico Autry where the defense becomes even that much more dangerous. Yeah, I think there is definitely another level for them to take. I think that's the other thing, because whether in the stuff that we've talked about so far this week, whether there's scheme and what they were trying to do against Indy, which is a run-dominant team with two dynamic players like you have with Richardson and with Taylor or not, you know there's things they can clean up. You know there's things that they can do better. So, I think that that's the biggest encouragement. They're not going to get beat. I don't feel deep consistently. I do feel like that was one of those things that was a byproduct of really focusing on the run more so than just personnel alone. But I will say that I am a bit concerned with Christian Harris being out for four weeks. The fact that the linebacker crew, I think, has to kind of step up a little bit too. Yeah, and that was one of the concerns that we had during the offseason because they just didn't have the depth there. I mean, we felt pretty good about your top two being Christian Harris and Aziz Al-Shayir, especially since there was a team towards the end of the season where they were playing 70, 80, 90% nickel at times. They weren't playing a lot of base defense, so in those situations there would only be two linebackers on the field. But even with that, being the kind of the class have full train of thought, they didn't have the depth behind them to where they could withstand an injury or two. And obviously Christian Harris gets injured. He's not going to be back to at least, I guess, week five, has to miss four games. So, there's some question marks there at linebacker. And I think it's way too early to press any panic buttons on Aziz Al-Shayir as somebody in the morning show was doing. But there is still, I mean, he could play better. There were a couple moments, especially on that deep crosser, I think it was Ashton Doolin, where he should have been there for either a pass breakup or a pick, and he misplayed it and allowed the breakaway touchdown. So, yeah, I mean, he needs to play better, and behind that there's really almost no depth, here he told Toho not someone I wanted to field a ton. I'm fine. If he's deaf, I'm not really fine. If he's a starter, and he costs Bullock an interception at one point in the game where he tipped a pass. No, I don't blame him. I don't blame him for it. Yeah, I don't blame him for it, but the reality is, that's an interception if he doesn't tip it. And so, yeah, there's definitely a concern there with the depth and the skill at linebacker. Yeah, I think that's the biggest thing with Toho Toho. We talk about ceilings as a team, as units, as players. Toho Toho, I think, is almost at his ceiling. We know that he's got great football knowledge. We know that he understands the game and the X's and the O's. We also know he's kind of limited athletically. So, you're not going to really find a spot for him to be a full-time starter. A full-time starter on this team or on a good football team. Maybe somewhere else, somewhere down the road, he ends up being a guy that can start, you know, a lot of games for someone else. But in this system, I think we've topped out on what he can be, and you hope that Christian Harris is only going to miss four games. Because that was the position that I was most focused on before the start of the regular season, was because we were iffy on Christian Harris, that I thought they needed a little bit more depth at linebacker. They didn't get there. They're confident in their guys. Hopefully, their guys are going to hold their own until you get a guy like Harris back. And it's really, and it's funny to say this because your head coach is a former linebacker, but it's a product of what D'Amico told us going into the O's season where his belief in the team philosophy was on the defensive side to build through the defensive line. And we saw that. Obviously, they, two years ago, they invested the first round pick of Will Anderson this offseason. They invested some money in D'Amico, Autry, and D'Amico Hunter, so that's what they've done. So I think, you know, when they have their full complement of players, that defensive line can be so nasty that they can eat up the blocks, cause the pressure, or maybe you get by with lesser talent in the linebacker. And that's lesser talent. Saying lesser talent is really kind of an insult to who they have there, because I do believe once Christian Harris is back, he and Aziz al-Shi are good enough, you know, a top half linebacker tandem in the NFL, they're good enough as your starters. The question still remains in the depth, but hopefully that defensive line can cause enough havoc and pressure when fully healthy once they get D'Amico, Autry back, that you maybe are able to mask some of the concerns from the line backing crew because they're eating up blocks and not allowing the lineman to get up to the next level to take advantage of some of those linebackers. I think the big thing too is that you don't want to peek in week one, right? It's good that we're having these conversations. Yeah, I don't think they did. Yeah, knowing that you've got improvements to make linebacker. You've got improvements, both at safety and at corner, in terms of just kind of as we go forward. You don't have life or death concerns about it. You just know that you can get better, and that's a good thing for a team that has high expectations. And as the caller said, you know, some people have grandiose, you know, levels and goals of 12 wins. They can get to a double digit win total and they can get better, which is what you have to be as happy as anything about as we move forward. All right, we're going to take a break. When we come back, let's get into that bleacher report. They say the Texans biggest weaknesses are they have five of them. What are yours, Brian? And I will give you ours and we'll kick it around a little bit when we get back. This is the Killer B's on ESPN 97-5 and added to 5 FM. ESPN 97-5. You're back with the Killer B's on ESPN 97-5 and 92-5, live from the Veritex Community Bank Studios. Here's Joel Blanken, Jeremy Branham. Branham out today, B-Mac in blank, taking it till six, and then soccer, of course, always matters. And it matters to Glenn Davis and he'll be with you after we get done and get out of here. But I teased this, let's get to this bleacher report and article today came out and said after week one, they found these five are the biggest weaknesses of your Houston Tech. Number one, interior defensive line. Number two, corner. Number three, interior offensive line. Number four, running back. Number five, safety. I questioned how closely they watched the Texans game, B-Mac, if I'm being honest. Yeah, I mean, I think they got most of the concerns right, the orders where I have the biggest problem, like safety to me is the biggest concern. I like, I like Bullock. I think he's going to be good safety. But he's rookie and Jamie to work concerns to me. And so does Jalen Petry if they're in a base defense where he has to play deep coverage. So I think safety would probably be my number one. Honestly, after week one, I don't know why running back is even on the list. That would be the other thing I would say. Unless it's death. Unless it's death. Yeah, death is fine. But I mean, Joel Mixick can do that. You don't need a lot of death. I mean, Damian Pierce had three carries. So, I mean, how much of a concern can three carries be? So, I think safety is one. I take running back off the list. I get the interior offense aligned and D-line, but I'm still willing to let that play out over the season. And a corner I think fixes itself as last year to get some more experience. Well, my biggest issues are one. I would have linebacker on this list simply because of what we just talked about. Yeah, replace linebacker with, or replace running back with linebacker, because the list looks a lot better. Right, because there's nothing to worry. Because look, even when Cole Thompson was in here and we were talking about the Texans, the fact is, is that Camden didn't even play, and can makers was capable. But Pierce, when he did get the ball, got positive yards. And Daray was really good in terms of pass blocking. He can catch the football, and you know, he's serviceable. So, I think that the depth actually improved, in my opinion, the stock went up because of the fact that it looked like because of where the line is. You're in a pretty good situation for now, assuming Nixon's always going to be your one. If he's not, it might be a different story. And so, linebacker not being on the list. And then interior D-line to me means that you're not, you're excluding the tackles. And that's another topic we talked about. Look, Titus Howard didn't look great. And Titus Howard is a guy that you've paid a lot of money to, that you need to see better from. Laramie Tutsil, we know, had the fall start penalty, but we think he's going to get better because he always does. As the season progresses, you're less worried about him. But I wouldn't just focus on the interior, because we know Kenyon Green played really good. Drew Scruggs in his first game at center played really good. Shaq Mason is the guy you can actually point a finger at and say, "Wasn't great." But I wouldn't just pinpoint it specifically as interior offensive line. I would say, "Look, their run blocking was fantastic. Their pass blocking can get better." Yeah, and if you were going to, you know, signal someone out, it wouldn't mean tear offense line. As you said, it'd be Titus Howard. Like the only guy, and we've talked about this a few times now, but the only guy that we say, you know, at times in that game against the Colts got manhandled, which to me is the far more concerning thing because it's less fixable. It's not something you could just go look at and film and figure out like you could with picking up, you know, the assignments on twists and stunts. If you're getting manhandled, that might not be fixable. And the only guy that had that problem was Titus Howard. So if you were going to single out an offensive line concerned to put on this list, it's not interior offensive line to me. It's right tackle at Titus Howard. Yeah, no doubt. Because I think Shaq's been really solid as well. Yeah, Shaq, I don't have his best game, but he's been a solid pro. I'm willing to let it play out a little bit more before I get concerned. The young guys were who I was concerned about going into the season. The young guys actually played well enough to where I'm not worried about them right now. Yeah. But Juice as well. Yeah, Juice was good. Juice was good. All right. So there, if you guys have any kind of rebuttal on that, if there's anything that we missed or that you guys want to correct or get into with the Bleacher Report weaknesses, we'll get into that. But let's also kind of switch gears and say, I saw an article as well this morning that said, "Which O and 1 team are you most worried about that should be already worried about pressing the panic button?" And to me, the answer to that first and foremost is the Cincinnati Bengals. Yeah. That's number one in my list too. It's twofold for me because of the fact that one, you lost to the Patriots. We had talked before the season started and before we knew how bad Carolina was going to look and how less than serviceable Bryce Young is, that the Patriots might be the worst team in the league. And they were going to stay away from playing their rookie quarterback early. They were going to play Jacobi Brissette and they might be playing for high draft picks. But yet they come in in the first win and get their first win against a team that a lot of people were saying could be competing for a Super Bowl in the Cincinnati Bengals. One, you had Chase holding out the entire preseason. We didn't know if he was going to play. Two, T Higgins didn't play. But three, more importantly, the other part of this is no matter how bad the loss was to the Patriots, there's still a ton of concern about Joe Burrow. We talked about it with the quarterback rankings. If he can't pick up a Gatorade bottle, if he looks like this wrist that is a bigger problem than he's leading on, if they can't beat the Patriots with a guy that's been the guy that could slay Patrick Mahomes, then they got real issues in Cincinnati. Yeah. And when you dig into the numbers, the first thing I noticed, and we saw some of this last year when you had the calf injury and he couldn't plan, he couldn't push, he couldn't deliver the ball, and it was that the yards per attempt were down. And so I'm looking at the box score, and I see his yards per attempt is down below six. It's like, I think it's, yeah, 5.7. I mean, that's Brock Osweiler territory. I mean, that's telling you, it's basically dump off, dump off, dump off, dump off. You look at his completion, 21 to 29, that's great. But his yards down at 164 is because he doesn't seem like he has the ability to get the ball downfield, and that could obviously be contributed to the wrist injury. So you missed some T Higgins. Jamar Chase still trying to round into shape, even though his day wasn't awful. But if he can't push the ball downfield because he's bothered the wrist, which would also invite in probably concerns with, you know, ball security. If he's getting hit, you would worry about him fumbling if he's having problems with his wrist. Yeah. Look, I said this yesterday. I don't think the Bengals have time to figure this out. They don't have time for T Higgins to get healthy. They don't have time for Jamar Chase to round into form. They don't have time for Joe Barrow to get healthy. The AFC is the beast. It's going to take at least 10 wins to get in last year as a wildcard team. It took 11. You're starting off 0 and 1 with probably the easiest game in your schedule as a loss. I'm very concerned right now if I'm a Bengals fan because the AFC is not a conference where you can get in as a wildcard with nine wins. So we were really up against it. We both had since day number one. Yeah. Right. So, you know, me was kind of a toss up between two different teams. I've got two as well. I'm interested if we agree on this. My first one, the Atlanta Falcons. That was one of them. The fact that Kirk Cousins doesn't look like the old Kirk Cousins. Kirk Cousins doesn't look like a good Kirk Cousins. And you gave Kirk Cousins a boatload of money for two years. We know you drafted a quarterback as well to be his heir apparent. But I don't think he's nearly ready in Michael Pennics to play now. And I think that there's a lot of talent, a lot of high expectations because of what that division was and also Tampa looked really, really good to where if I'm the Atlanta Falcons, I'm deeply concerned. The other team for me was the Jets. To me, Aaron Rodgers doesn't look like the same Aaron Rodgers. And Aaron Rodgers does look the same like Aaron Rodgers. When you don't catch a ball from Aaron Rodgers, he's pissed off. You had a lot of guys dropping passes. You had a lot of guys that they weren't on the same page offensively. You had guys that in Breece, even Breece Hall and guys like that were turning the ball over that Garrett Wilson had his moments as well, where you're like, those guys aren't supposed to be doing those things. You still have a holdout on defense and your defense. It was the Niners. I'll give you a little bit of a pass there. But as much as I thought that one of the sleeper teams could be the Jets, I'd be worried if I was Jets fans. Yeah, Jets is, I mean, if you're making a top five, they would definitely be in there. I'm willing to give them a little bit of a pass for what you said there because it's the Niners. Like I'm willing to accept that maybe they just look bad because it was the Niners they were playing. The Niners are a team when we talked earlier in the show is the number two team in the league on our power ranking. So I'm willing to wait a week on the Jets. The other team besides the Falcons- I know you're doing. Okay, so I think you do. I was surprised you didn't say it, but because I agree with you the Falcons, like Kirk Cousins, I mean, he's having to drop back and shotgun in pistol, but basically every play because he can't drop back from under center. He's not, and he's a guy that loves to be able to run the play action fakes from under center. He's not able to do it because he can't drop back. So big concern there. The other one, it's obvious, it's your team. It's the Packers. Oh, all you thought I was going somewhere else somewhere else. Who'd you think? Oh, that's a really, really talented team that was the playoff team. They got a quarterback that looks pretty bad. That's a good call. I said Packers because Jordan wants out maybe three weeks, the best case, worst case, maybe four or five. I think they, I don't know, Malik Willis was so awful in Tennessee that it's going to be hard to see them not going over until Jordan Love gets back. So if that's 0 and 4, I mean, maybe you can overcome that. I don't think they can, but if he's out more than just the three games and it turns into 0 and 5 or 0 and 6 because Malik Willis was as bad as we saw in Tennessee, season's over. I'm going to be very random this year. Okay. Because I was the smartest man in the room, they've told you already that you shouldn't put any stock in the Packers because they weren't as good as people thought. I wasn't as concerned about Jordan Love and the Packers. I was concerned more about the serial issue, Causer and problem maker in Deshaun Watson not having any ability left in the tank, no matter what he has, ability wise, otherwise are things that he's doing off the field. The Browns had a playoff team last year. The Browns have a really good roster. The Browns have the ability to be a playoff team again this year, but they shipped out of town, the guy that was responsible for not only keeping the ship afloat, but leading into the playoffs a year ago because they didn't want controversy with Deshaun Watson. Well, you got controversy now because Deshaun Watson looks like absolute crap and the fact that there were high expectations. Now all of the Cleveland is losing their mind. People are pointing fingers. Deshaun obviously has the off the field things going on yet again. And you're like, man, this whole thing could go in the crapper really quick with Cleveland. If there one hell bent on saying he's our quarterback, we paid the money. He's got to play because there's already people clamoring like Gander Lofsky for playing James Winston. I think this team is too good to be that bad with that guy at quarterback. I think it already has gone to the crapper too. I'm mad at myself for not making the Browns my team because I'm already to the point. I don't see a scenario where Deshaun Watson plays better. I don't like we we've we've we've well, I say we I've killed Aaron Rodgers because you know, hey, it's been since 2021 since we saw vintage Aaron Rodgers. Let's not assume that he comes back and he's as great as he was because it's been three years. It's been even longer for Deshaun Watson. The last time Deshaun Watson was good Deshaun Watson was the 2020 season. Yeah. It's been a long time. He's he's played like 17 games since the 2021 season and when he has played, he's looked awful. He's also dealing with nagging injuries, not making excuses for him, but it's a part of the story here that not only is he regressed, is he rusty because he took so much time off. He's also hard. I also think Joe maybe I don't know if this conspiracy theory or maybe it's just a theory. I also think and this is not making excuse for him because this is something he did to himself as an awful person, but I think everything that happened with the allegations took something away from his confidence and his mojo that he's not able to regain. He thought himself as bulletproof coming out of Clemson, beating Alabama for the national championship, coming into the NFL, taking the NFL by storm. His confidence and swagger had him at a point where he felt bulletproof and then what he went through in 2020, all of his own making again, let me make that clear, took that swagger and that confidence away from him. You pile on top of that, the rust, you pile on top of that, the injuries. And I just don't think he's ever going to regain that form. I said it. I said it when Jeremy and I were kicking this around back when the trade happened and then after the Browns got him, I said, I don't know that John Watson will ever, ever again be what he was even when he was with the Texans. And I think that a lot of it is what you said. I do believe that there is the way to the world on his shoulders. I believe a lot of it is all the allegations and all the things. I think the other thing is the fact that the contract, the expectations that go with that, the fact that now he's getting all kinds of national criticism as well as plenty of local criticism about the fact that it might be the worst trade in NFL history. And then as you mentioned, the other thing that I was big on was I don't care how many of your friends are running routes for you while you're supposedly staying fresh, starting when you were with the Texans and sat out for a season. But then after that, because of the injuries that you mentioned, haven't really played consistently since then. Your body adapts when you start getting hit every week. When you don't, it relaxes. And I think that Deshawn got the contract and a lot of his body language and not to mention the body language of his teammates, tell me that he doesn't look like he's got a whole lot of care. And I don't think his teammates care a whole lot about him. No, I don't know if you saw this video, you see the video where there's an offensive lineman down. Antonio. Yeah. Yeah. Watson put down his hand to like help him up in the offensive lineman shoved his hand away. Yeah. That's what I'm talking about. I don't think his teammate, what I can't obviously can't speak for the entire locker room. But I think there's a good section of that Browns locker room that doesn't like Deshawn Watson a whole lot. And I think one, it could be his contract, two, it could be the field stuff, three, it could be the fact that his performance has been awful. There's lots of reasons that it's like, yeah, and I think that, you know, it is stacking and racking like, I don't think this guy's ever getting back to anywhere near respectability. I don't know how long the Browns are going to keep him at quarterback. I said, or Lofsky already is saying that the Brown should be thinking long and hard about Jamis Winston taking over now, which is an even bigger concern. And I got to see a lot more want to out of Deshawn Watson to try and get better because it looked like now there's this whole rumor about having a secondary account on Twitter so that he could go and try and stick up for himself like Allah, Kevin Durant. If you're doing all that stuff, but you're not showing me on the field that you've got the ability and or the want to, I got major concerns if I'm the Browns because that that's going to derail your whole season for and several seasons after that. So, all right, we'll wrap that up. We got more to get to look. We got an Astros game to talk about again tonight. You got Hunter Brown on the mound. Hopefully that's a good sign for your Houston Astros. The bigger question though is is Kyle Tucker's stubbornness hurting the Houston Astros? We're going to talk about that. Once we get back from the break before we get to the break, I do want to tell you again about my good friends at my bookie. Mybookie.ag is the place you ought to be. If you're talking about betting on sports, if you love to bet on sports while they're happening while you're watching them on TV or you're going to the game or you think you know something that other people don't know, other people don't know, you go to mybookie.ag because they're constantly taking care of you, the customer while you are taking care of your bets. That's the phenomenal part about all this with football season and full swing with college and pro football there. Mybookie has all the incredible promotions like the weekly risk free boosts on Thursdays where you can bet without a sweat. You bet and you hit on Thursday, you win big. If you bet on Thursday and you don't win, forget about it. My bookie is going to refund your wager. No questions asked. They got tons of stuff going on and when the games aren't going on, they also have live dealers standing by with poker, blackjack and all the casino games. The live dealers waiting on you so that you can get all your casino games without having to fly to Vegas or drive to Louisiana. The one thing I always tell you to do is remember our promo code bet975. If you sign up for the first time at mybookie.ag and you put money in your account and you put our promo code in at bet975, you're going to get extra money tacked on based on what you put in up to a thousand dollars. More money in your account, more games you can bet on and more chances you can win. That's why my bookie is always focused on their customer. They've been in business for over a decade. They're going to take care of you too. Check out the new loyalty program too with mybookie plus. The more you play, the more you win, it's simple. You climb through all the tiers of the loyalty reward program, you can unlock even more epic promotions, all the exclusive giveaways and bigger rewards. My bookie plus is the lock of the century. Get it started now. Go to mybookie.ag and do what I always tell you to do. Bet anything, anytime, anywhere. What's the only place I tell you to do? It's mybookie.ag and use that promo code bet975. Now, back to The Killer B's on ESPN 97 5 and 92 5. Live from the Peritex Community Bank Studios, here's Joel Blank and Jeremy Branham. We ran him out today, hopefully back and better, the next day or so, hopefully we have back tomorrow, BMAC and I, and a plethora of guests and information that have filled up your afternoon, as we take you through the final half hour of the program, and BMAC was watching the game last night with the Astros, and Paul Tucker came up in two specific situations, runner-in-scoring position, less than two outs. You and from the listeners, your feedback on an opinion I've got, but before we do that, I do want to get to you, the listeners, a chance for you to win another opportunity to join us at the listener party, the listener party's next Friday. Listener party's going to be a phenomenal experience. They always are. They're going to be up here at the Gals Studios. We're going to have food. We're going to have beverage. You got to be 21 to get in. We've been selling the tickets. You can still get the tickets via our website if you don't win them, but we want to give you the opportunity to get in for free if you listen to me. And therefore, we're going to give you the opportunity right now. We're going to take caller number five, caller number five, seven, one, three, seven, eight, zero, three, seven, seven, six, seven, one, three, seven, eight, zero, three, seven, eight, zero, three, seven, seven, seven, eight, zero, ESPN. You get a pair of tickets to our ESPN listener party. You're going to get the behind the scenes look at where and how our shows and videos are made. You can sit in the actual chair that Brian McDonald has graced like a throne for years and years in the production studio. See the studio. We do the show in. See all of us. Have a good time. Call it number five. You can get the tickets, seven, one, three, seven, eight, zero, three, seven, six, or go to ESPN nine, seven, five.com under the promotions tab and buy some tickets so you can make sure you're there regardless. All right. Getting back to this topic at Kyle Tucker, I'm watching the games last night, the game last night, offense was obviously not good, but you had two opportunities. One in extra innings with a chance to at least tie the game. One late in the game. I think it was the eighth inning runner on third base less than two outs. Kyle Tucker doesn't come through whether he strikes out or he pops up. You can see his frustration. He's one for 10 since he came back. And the thing is, I look back to this and say, this is a guy that we had questions about that when we were reading the tea leaves with Dana Brown and trying to discuss when Kyle Tucker was going to be back. We kept hearing more and more, Kyle doesn't think he needs a rehab stint in Sugar Land. And you kept wondering, Hey, look, I know they're bringing in double A pitchers to pitch batting practice to him. We know that he's doing the work on the field to get the leg back, but it's also about timing and facing major league hitting right now, one for 10 looks overmatched in almost every at bat in the fact that he's not the old Kyle Tucker and nor should he be. But that's why to me, I call it stubbornness and I'm questioning as much as we both have said, we threw in the towel and believe that the Astros now just have to be purely focused on just winning the division, going to the wildcard round, having three games at home, and two of them move on that I firmly believe that Kyle Tucker stubbornness. If he had gone down to Sugar Land, he might already be back up, but he might have gotten his timing back and gotten more close to major league pitching and major and baseball situations to where he could have been more effective in some of these at bats. We've seen him so far, not that all 10 at bats were in big time situations, but specifically last night, those two at bats, critical times, the last one could have tied the game less than two outs, 12th inning. That's something where you wonder if Kyle Tucker being stubborn didn't hurt you last night. I definitely, I mean, this was an opinion I gave when it was announced he was going to skip a minor league rehab start. I didn't like it because I saw what happened with Verlander, where he came up and he basically had to have, you know, rehab starts at the major leagues. He wasn't ready and David Brown gave him the excuse of, well, he's going through spring training. He was missing two months. Well, Justin or Kyle Tucker missed three months. He missed even further. So I didn't like it. Now I will say, I mean, obviously, if he'd gone through the minor league rehab start, he wouldn't even been here last night. So you know, who would have taken that a bat? Would they've done any better? Hard to say for sure. But I do think he would have been better off going down to minor leagues, getting his time and getting his rhythm back. Maybe this is overrated, but getting a little bit of confidence back, at least in the fact that the leg is healed, running around, making plays, running the bases, taking some minor league pitchers deep, getting his swagger back, then come back up. All that said, he's got time to get that back. Now, does it cost the Astros a chance at the buy? I think it already has. And I think he did it, but the buy is already over, and I think the divisions fine. So I think the stakes aren't super high as long as he's able to get right. But Brian, like last night, you say that it's easy to question and say, would anybody else have done any better? But they brought Singleton off the bench as a left-handed bat. Singleton almost yanked one out of the yard. He got a big, big extra base hit that got the ball rolling and got this team onto the scoreboard. But Tucker didn't take Singleton's spot. No, he didn't. But I was saying, if Singleton's on the bench as a left-handed bat or you want, if you're pinch hitting there or you put someone else in that part of the lineup, you also could say that, hey, look, here, he's really good at the left side of the plate. You've got left-handed hitters capable. Look, Ben Gamel has been good since you got him. There's options enough that Gamel's done a good enough period to keep this team afloat without Kyle Tucker to where when you look at the situation right now, you say to yourself, I could have as good as I could never have imagined that the Astros being this good without Kyle Tucker for this long. But because they were this good for this long, a couple more games wasn't going to kill him to make sure that when he did come back, we know how important it is to the and how vital it is for him to be good for the playoffs. But it might affect your playoffs because he didn't do the minor league stint. Yeah, I just, I'm with you and then he should have taken the minor league rehab instead. No disagreement there. I was fully on board before it happened and I still am now. I think he would better quicker once he got to the Major Leagues had he done that. But I mean, the problem as far as relating it to the last race game, I mean, it's, it's kind of what Jeremy's point would he disagree that Tucker should take the minor league rehab stint. It's like, what are the other options in the corner outfield like if, if Tucker does take that minor league rehab stint, I mean, he, he, by him coming back, he's not taking care in team. He's spot in the lineup. He's not taking singleton spot in the lineup. He's taking guys that we didn't really want hitting for the Astros anyway. So I don't know. The ammo's been good. And the thing is he doesn't have to stay down. There's no set time. I don't believe what he could have sent him down just for a couple of games to get time and get a couple of games under his belt, then bring him up. But we saw what happened to Chaz. Chaz went down was completely lost. Chaz looks a lot better since he came back up. I don't think that, I don't think that that hurts the case to say what would have hurt Kyle Tucker to go down for a couple of ball games, get some really good at bats in against some better than average pitching that's better than what he was facing in batting practice and then say we're going to work you back into the lineup. Yeah. No, he could have gone down. Remind me. He came back up for the weekend series. I'm trying to make. Exactly. They got back from Cincinnati. He was in the lineup from the Arizona he was in the lineup for the Arizona series over the weekend. So he could have gone down in order to be back up for last night's game against the A's. He could have spent three games with, you know, I assume the space cowboys, but you know, one of the Astros minor league affiliates, I think it would have been sugar land. Yeah, it would have been sugar land. So yeah, okay, you know, that being said, I think I go with you like I do think he should have gone down. I was in favor of him taking even longer than three days, but it's hard to say would three days be enough for him to get his rhythm and a swing back maybe, maybe not. It's hard to say the way. So I think he'd been better served doing it because right now he's looking at the results in the field. He's one for 10 with four strikeouts. He's been awful flat out. I know he's got a couple of walks amongst that time too. So at least maybe his eyes there, but I think he would have been better served going down to the mile. He's going to get. He's going to get the same kind of batting practice he was getting against the double A pitchers and the pitchers they were bringing to Houston to pitch against him. He's also going to get 15 to 20 quality at bats in a game situation facing live pitching in a live game with triple A pitchers to where you got to believe that only helps get his timing back quicker than whatever he was doing on the field here in Houston. No, I agree. Yeah. I guess the pushback is for me that I don't think it costs them the buy like, I mean, I guess you could say they they win that game last night then then maybe they're still in it. Like we did. We did talked about the math of the situation where the Astros would have to go 14 and four if the Guardians just even went eight nine. So obviously the Guardians could finish much better than eight nine in the final 17. The Astros might be mathematically eliminated. So even if they flip that game, now the Astros have to win, you know, I don't know what that would be. They 13 and five over the final 18. It's still a really, really daunting task even if Kyle Tucker takes the appropriate path, goes to the minor leagues, gets his swing back and comes back and plays better for the Astros last night than he did. So I can't put his stubbornness costs and then the buy on him though I do think he would have been better served and better in the major leagues quicker. Had he taken that route. I think whether it cost him or not, I think it definitely hurt them in the fact that him coming back and being this bad when one, it's not completely solidified. You're going to win the division, but it looks like you are in a Mariners division. I feel pretty confident. Two, but I think that we talked about how, how ideal it would be if they would get one of the two buys and it wasn't out of the realm of possibilities. And now we both feel like it is. And I think that some of those key at bats. And the other thing is I don't think once a spot of puts him in the lineup, he was never going to pinch hit for him in any of those situations, which makes his job more difficult too. Because I think just from the, I bet you in the back of his mind though he would never admit this that there was a time in one of those two at bats last night that he could have thought about pinch hitting for Tucker, knowing that he could get someone that could put the bat on the baseball better just to get you a fly ball. Yeah, it's, it's interesting because you're right. I don't think he could pull him. It's, it's still, it's still tough to say though, because even if he's, I mean, the replacement level for Kyle Tucker is, I know you, I know we like big gamble. He's had some big moments for him. It's just, there's not a lot of options to go to for him in the corner outfield. So I do think he'd been better off going to the, to the minor leagues, taking the weekend, taking basically the Diamondback series off and then coming back for the series against the A's at least I wouldn't even mind it even a longer stint because I think three days is really not enough time to make up for three months missed. But I don't think as far as stakes go that it costs you the buy and I think the division is safe. So it's kind of no harm, no foul, although I agree with you that he didn't take the most optimal path. There you go. All right. So what's coming up for the Astros tonight and then we've got the car wreck of the day as we normally do Monday through Thursday, before we go to the break, I do want to tell you about the good people at Vanderford Air because we know that look, we've got this little cool spell because of the rain, but it's still going to be hot and it's going to be really, really steamy. And the fact is you need your air air conditioning unit to be working at its utmost best when it gets hot outside and we know how Houston weather is. The AC is a sold, it's such a vital part of your house. You need to make sure it's working correctly and if it goes down, you need to know who to call and how quickly they're going to be there and all the things they're going to do to guarantee you get everything you need out of your air conditioning service. That's why I tell you to call Vanderford Air. Vanderford Air.com is where the process can start, but better yet, I need you to save this number in your phone because you never know when you're going to need it, but when you need it, you need a company that's going to know how to treat you right. 281557 cool to 81557 cool, they're going to take care of you every step of the way. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart, but I'm proving it to you right now. And the time you call them within 24 hours, they're guaranteed they're going to be there to see you. It's not going to take days on and you're not going to have to wait before everybody else. They guarantee within 24 hours that you contacting them, they're going to be there to see you and then everything from there is going to be guaranteed. They're going to put in writing and they're going to analyze the problem and they're going to tell you what it's going to cost to replace a part and what it's going to cost to replace the entire system. The choice is yours, but you have it in writing, you can go with either option. And then once you pick your option, their people are going to install it correctly the first time. Your people are going to listen to you as they do what they do. They're going to set the temperature to get to exactly where you need it to be. The system's going to work exactly how they told you it would. The parts are going to be as good as the system they replace. If the part it is that you replaced, it's guaranteed the system the same way. They take care of you every step of the way. So they take all the worry, all the doubt and the guarantees are there to prove it. 100% satisfaction guarantee or your money back. That's why I always encourage you to call them. Give them a call today. Save the number in your phone or use them when you need them. It's vanderfordair.com or 281. It's time to play the game. Time to play the game. Now back to the killer bees on ESPN 97.5 and 92.5. Live from the Peritex Community Bank Studios, here's Joel Blanket, Jeremy Branham. Back on the bees final segment of the program, don't wait, don't miss it. Get your seat belts fastened for all the soccer you want more with my good man, Glenn Davis. My dear friend is going to be talking soccer with you and soccer matters from 67, but we do have 100 Brown on the mound. That's his music. Brian, I'll throw it around to you because I was close last night. You had six and three and it was six and two thirds and two. I was in the realm? You were in the ball. It's a baseball term. You were in the ball park. You were in the ball park. Yes. 100 Brown on the hill against the lowly A's. I know I can't say it again, can't I? What do you expect to get out of 100 Brown this evening? I'm going to go six and a third, kind of similar to what Spencer Arigatti gave you. I'm going to go six and a third, two or runs. Okay. I thought if you go in three, I was like that's a little high. Oh, no. I have confidence that he can have a quality start plus, I mean, better than a quality start against the A's. I like it. I hope it goes with less runs and I hope it goes for longer. Oh, sure. I hope it goes with no hitter. The most important thing is I hope they get that win because I'm tired of screwing around with all of those. If they lose again tonight, I know we all feel pretty good about the division. We'll see what Seattle also does tonight, but if they lose against the A's, there might be some hard conversations coming in tomorrow. Man. And all so long because we are the realists in the city and if you've got to be real about this team, you can well better get a couple of wins here at home before you face the rest of this schedule. Yeah. The Padres are coming up on the road. Yeah. That's going to be a tough series. Padres have been playing well. They've been kicking the crap out of team. Yeah. They've been helping you with. Yes. Yes. And they're a playoff team. They are a really good team right now. You can't take them for granted. And look, I watched the Angels play as much as everybody looks past the Angels too. Yeah, just got some young talent coming up that some pitchers that can flat out hurl that are going to give you some problems if you're not ready for it. So that's that's going to be really, really intriguing coming down the stretch. Let's start with a win tonight. That would be fantastic. All right. We got to get out of here. So let's get to the car wreck of the day. You heard the man, car wreck of the day. I would start by saying the Astros offense last night would be the car wreck of the day. And as Jeremy normally does, he turns it over to the analyst first and foremost. So be Mac, what is your car wreck of the day? You mentioned it. I think it was in the last segment. There is a DeShawn Watson or what people suspect to be a DeShawn Watson burner account. He's on Twitter at Leroy Bickerstaff for if you want to find him on X and we don't have time to read through all the all the tweets, but basically all his tweets and he has no photo for this account. It's very, it's very burden or account asked with no photo. But all his Twitter account, all his tweets that is are in defense and reply to people criticizing DeShawn Watson and defending DeShawn Watson. One example, again, find them online. Barstow has it. They'll have time to read them all, but he's responding to a guy complaining about DeShawn Watson with a reply of guys in the locker room got forced back all day long. If y'all never played the sport and don't know for like that coming on here and blaming for for not succeeding in a possible situation, it's just it feels very Kevin, Kevin Durranis. It does. It's just all the tweets are focused on DeShawn Watson criticism, defending DeShawn Watson blindly. I'm not saying it's a burner account with DeShawn Watson, but I'm saying it's probably a burner account for DeShawn Watson. Greg Jennings went on his show this morning and they said that instead of Greg Jennings, Lee Roy Bickerstaff was joining and he changed his Twitter account to look like Lee Roy Bickerstaff. That's pretty, that's pretty, it's not a good look, but it's not all that surprising from DeShawn. All right. I already mentioned the Astros offense last night was Mike Carreck of the day. Who's winning? It's got to be DeShawn. Yeah. I mean, can we, I think we might have to hang DeShawn's jersey up in the Carreck of the Day rafters. We might have to be tired. I just tell, are you? Yeah, we might have to, we might have to retire because it's, it feels like we could give it to him every day. But yeah, I'm fine with the song winning today. John Winston. Oh, by the way, you threw the white towel in on the Astros. You didn't throw it. I mean, on the Astros, getting the buy. You didn't throw that white towel in. No, not the little, not the little dish towel that John Watson launched. Just check it. All right. That'll do it for Brian doing double duty and all the hard work. I'm Joel Blank. Coming up next, it's Glenn Davis. It's soccer matters. All your soccer talking, more he's going to take you from six o'clock until seven o'clock right here on the home for all of your real Houston sports talk. It's ESPN 97 5 and 92 5 FM. Have a good night, everybody. Food and Red Rule, you're listening to ESPN 97 5.