The Killer B's: Joel Blank & Jeremy Branham
11/25 Hour 2 - Who is at Fault for the Texan's Loss??
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And with seamless integrations for your favorite services and selling channels that you already use, it's never been easier to stay organized. Ready to take your e-commerce business to the next level? Switch to ShipStation today. Go to shipstation.com and use code casefile to sign up for your free 60-day trial. That's shipstation.com code casefile. [MUSIC] You listening to The Killer Beans, with Joel Blanket, Jeremy Brannen. On ESPN 97.5 and 92.5. Broadcasting live from the Veritex Community Bank Studios. Texture from the high, the illegal motion by mixing was so egregious. He's been playing football for a long time, and that's always a penalty. Even if the OC is dumb enough to call that, he has to stay put, highly doubt that motion was practiced. And if it was, fire everywhere on that side of the ball, there's no way that Bobby Slovak's calling a play where multiple guys are in motion. That's an illegal shift. It is an automatic penalty. It's playing his day. There's no way that's on Slovak. It was either Joe Mixin, like, in motion, and shifted at the same time as Tank Dell, or it's what CJ Stroud said. And CJ Stroud said in his postgame that he said something wrong, and that's why Mixin shifted. I tend to believe it was Stroud. I do too. I absolutely do. That's why I brought it up. I just feel like, look, there's times that you're right. They're going to fall on the sword and take the bullet so that no one else gets blamed. And that's cool. That's being a great teammate and all that stuff. But in this case, I really believe that, however, it happened, you know, miss calling of the player, whatever. I would put it on CJ and believe him in this particular instance. And the crazy thing, Jeremy, was that penalty didn't come out right away. Like they didn't realize until they said the flag came out late when they realized that that play was going to result in a touchdown that could be a game changer. I thought I saw it right away. Go back and look at it. I I I saw it. I could be wrong, but I I saw it live that I re we round it this morning. It seemed to me like they said, you know, look like motion. They didn't call it. And then the Niko play happens. They're like, the flag comes out late. And then it was, you know, the two guys in motion. I mean, that was so it was I think that's why too. It was a blatant and it was going to result in a big time touchdown with time, right? I think they had to call it. And I think you might have been I think you might have been fooled by the graphic, maybe. Yeah, I think the graphic might have went up late. I think the announcer's notated earlier. No, I see a flag right here. I just pulled it up. I pulled it up. You can see the flag land right as CJ Strauss throwing the football. Yeah, he's throwing the top official throws the flag. And I'd be curious to see if the bottom official did too, but maybe not because it was on the top of you would say that that should go up before he evens way before he. So it's well, no, it's not a penalty until it snapped because you can have multiple guys shifting at the same time. They just both have to come set for a second. I think he throws it as soon as it was snapped. He just kind of throws it high in the air. So everybody could see it. Regardless, I'm just you're right. I put it on CJ. I think that, you know, he I really believe he was owning up to it at that point because he also realizes how impactful it was and how hurtful it was to the team's chances to win the football game. You just can't have those things happen. I don't get at this point. It's almost I mean, it's relevant. I want to know why it happened. Yeah, but it's why that. Yeah, I think it's CJ too, but that's why I was kind of like, I don't care who's fault it was, like this is the Houston Texans problem, whether it's drought, whether it's mixing, it doesn't matter. That's P. We level football if I had to assign blame. I do think it was on Stroud. But at the same time, that cannot happen. No matter whose fault it was, if you want to be a team that actually has aspirations of being a deep playoff team, and I don't think anybody has those aspirations anymore. I think they ruined those aspirations from even the most Homer of fans, quite frankly. D'Amico Ryan's was taking some heat yesterday and look, I have a theory that whenever the fan base is mad at the coach, it doesn't matter what they say. They could say that they're donating a billion dollars to like the city to help clean it up and they'd be like, well, it should have been two billion. Like as soon as soon as the fan base starts to turn sour on you or they're mad at you, it does not matter what you say. And D'Amico Ryan's had a quote after the game where he said the offense scored enough points to win today and the defense needs to be better. It's catching a lot of heat, people are thinking that this could have some, you know, shockwaves to the locker room, like crazy thoughts based on this. So I thought it was very important to a pull the entire question so we can get the entire context of what was asked and then what the answer was. So here's the Q&A, D'Amico Ryan's much maligned saying that the offense scored enough points to win yesterday. You guys lost some last two score games. They're growing concerned right now that you guys just need more from the offense. The concern for me is we need to play complimentary football, right? We play complimentary football. We win games and we don't, we're not relying on one side, right, to carry the entire team. So whatever happens, like our offense gave us enough points to win the game. So that starts with the defense, didn't do enough to stop, but we didn't stop the run and we didn't run the ball well and we gave up way too many points on defense. So our offense did plenty and gave us no points in defense. We have to be able to stop. Should D'Amico Ryan's be taking heat for this answer in the post game yesterday? I mean, I don't think so. I think it's one of those situations where because he's such a prideful, you know, he'll take the heat for it kind of guy. I don't think, I just, I don't, I don't think that you're going to have a locker room that know that any guys that know D'Amico at all that think that they're getting crapped on as a defensive unit to take the bullet for the offense. I think that his basic premise is probably going to be we shouldn't have given up the big long ball right after we took the lead. We shouldn't have given up the big plays that we gave up all game long. Sure. It was our defensive front putting up great numbers and sacks and doing all the things that they were doing, but it's more so the fact that he's responsible for the defense and the fact that as good as they were on the front seven part of it, that they had a ton of shortcomings on their side of the ball too. I just, I don't see, I know everybody is out for blood and they're looking for whatever they can pounce on. I just, I'm not going to make too big of a deal out of a coach that really knows it was a tough loss and is trying to just, he obviously loved to move on, but you just can't without addressing what failed and how miserable the outcome was. I think it's completely ridiculous to bash Tamiko Ryan's for the answer to that question. There's a lot of things that happened in the game and we just went through them 15 minutes ago that you can point to Tamiko Ryan's and poorly coached football team and these are the signs of a poorly coached football team. If you want to punt on fourth and one at your own 39, I'm not going to stand in your way. I'm not going to be critical of you of that, but when you take a delay of game to make that decision, that's borderline ridiculous. But the whole Q&A yesterday, it's crazy to me that people were diving this deep into this and using this as a Tamiko Ryan's bash, like flame session, he was asked about the offensive struggles. He's not going to throw them under the bus publicly. Like that's who Tamiko Ryan's is. He might be honest that we need to do better at this, A-Y-N-Z, A-B-N-C, X-Y-N-Z, but he's not going to sit there and be like, okay, this is the issues. Bobby Slo extinct, Stroud's got to be better, Joe Mixon needs to run the ball better. The offensive line, they got dominated by the defensive line. He might say those in roundabout ways, but not those directive terms. So this was just him not throwing the offense under the bus, and him being the defensive play caller saying, well, look, we got to clean up our areas too. We can't be all on the offense whenever we had some areas of concern as well. So and then we always talk about fan base, like they need to coach who shows responsibility and takes responsibility for their errors. This was Tamiko taking responsibility for a defense, he didn't think played all that well yesterday. So there's a lot of reasons to bash Tamiko Ryan's today. This one is silly. I completely agree. I just think that, again, everybody's got the crosshairs on every single possible person that could be responsible for what they feel like is a devastating and embarrassing loss. But at the end of the day, it's not like we don't think that the defense did their job. We know that the defense was dominant, destructive, was putting up the sack numbers that, you know, was the sacks in the first half alone was just ridiculous. The fact that we're going to sit there and point the finger and say, yeah, this is definitely on the defense. We know where the shortcomings were. We know where they lost the game. We know why we lost the game. But if you're expecting him to come out and just drink some truth serum and go, guys sit down because this is going to be a long one, but I'm just going to have to, you know, call it like I see it and call out the guys that didn't do it. It's never going to happen. Yeah, I disagree with the Texans defense being dominant and destructive yesterday. Oh, I said the front seven. Yeah, I mean, can you call the front seven dominant and destructive whenever you give up a hundred and so the defense, okay, the interior offensive line, interior defensive line. You're right. I mean, they got, I think one area they were dominant. I mean, second, the quarterback eight times is dominant, but I don't know if the overall product was you can't give up a hundred and 32 yards and say that any part of your defense was dominant. The pass rush might have been dominant. Okay. The pass rush was dominant. The pass rush was definitely dominant and the pass rush was keeping you in the game because the pass rush was doing everything to, you know, get you the football back to prevent them from getting into scoring position and getting drives that were ending in points. You're right. There can't be a guy that's gashing you and you can't let, you know, Levis is going to get his occasionally because he can run the football and if they call it, a lot of times the defense is, you know, got so many other things to worry about that he can get away with it. I mean, ten yards. I mean, it was all. I'm just saying overall if you're game planning, but for the, for the long haul, yeah, Pollard was way too effective, but more so you have to own the fact that you couldn't run to his first part of his comment. You couldn't run the football and you couldn't stop the run. Yes. I mean, I think the defense was bad yesterday. Like I don't like, I don't agree that the, the defense was like good. Was the defense better than the offense yesterday? Sure. But that's kind of a pillow fight comparing the two. The defense, we, you get, look at the, I mean, look at the yards. Look, until you until it's 99 yards, they gave up how many yards in the ground, 132 yards, you're giving up huge play after huge play, huge play. They had two explosive touchdowns. The defense was bad yesterday, a tight end blowing the top off the defense and sprinting by almost your entire defense after you finally took the lead was the one that kicked you in the groin that, that basically settled the, you settled the score in a lot of ways to say that just can't happen and your defense can't do that, but, but I think to that point because of how bad the offense was and because they were kicking themselves in the foot, no matter every chance they got to take points off the board that the sacks were stopping drives, almost all by themselves in a lot of ways, especially in the first half. I think you have 32 points, right, but in the first half, it was what's 20 to 17 because of his turnover, but you give up 17 points, you could have given up a lot more. If not for the fact that the sack 20, I mean, 20, I see what you're saying, you gave up three because of the, that's still a lot of points, 17 points of the Titans, a lot of points. It's a lot of points. Yeah. Well, to me, and that's, that's to me where D'Amico is coming from. I think like shit was the, was the defense better in the offense yesterday? Sure. Like I can see that sure, but they were nowhere close to their standard and they were nowhere close to good. So D'Amico Ryan's is going to sit there and point the finger at the offense when his own defense was bad. Like he's not going to do that. He's going to be like, well, we were not good as well. So like we have to clean up our own issues too before I'm sitting there pointing fingers. It's not like they give up three points and lost a three-nothing game. It's not like Will Levis threw for 120 yards either or 278. It's not like Tony Pollard went for 24 carries and 50 yards. He went for 119. It's not like they got nothing over the top. They scored two explosive touchdowns. Like the defense was also bad. Was it better than the poor offense? Sure. But it was bad defensively too. Yeah. And I mean, I think that overall it's just the fact that we can sit there and dissect the internal, you know, area by area, offense, defense, special teams and position by position. The fact is overall this was a inexcusable performance. And this was to your point of embarrassing. This was something that was not supposed to happen. No time in the season to a team that is as bad as Tennessee supposed to be. But when you look at it, you say you can point to four different reasons or five different areas to say why they lost this football game. No doubt. And that's where the biggest issue is. A team that's supposed to be considered a playoff team. They're going to be a playoff team and a team that's supposed to have the aspirations of getting further than they did a year ago are not supposed to have four and five different reasons why you lost a football game and more questions than answers, especially at this point in the season, seven, one, three, but that I think that's where D'Amico is coming from there though. Right. Like the offense was bad. You're willing to throw the offense into the bus. He's like, look, we got to look at the mirror or what we did defensively. That was also a bad product that we put on film as a coach though to Jeremy. The other thing is, and that's kind of I think what we're saying without saying completely, but as a coach, you're you're you're in for the long haul. So you're you do to yourself no good to air out in the media, what you should be fixing behind closed doors, completely agree. And that's why I don't really take press conferences, that series, because they're not very, very seldom are they given you the actual truth, very, very seldom. And they're going to usually keep that stuff in house, especially D'Amico. D'Amico is pretty dang guarded. He is. Some coaches who are more transparent. There are certain players that are more transparent. D'Amico Ryan's gives you almost nothing. All right, seven, one, three, seven, eight, zero ESP and I believe what do you believe after this college football weekend, seven, one, three, seven, eight, zero, three, seven, seven, six, it's the bees on ESPN 97 five and ESPN 92 five. The winners, the losers and all the best college football moments this weekend. Did you see it? That goes down the balls out again. Can you feel it? Do you believe now? You believe that? I'm awesome. You believe? Oh, no. Oh, no. Do you believe that? What do you believe now? After this college football weekend, seven, one, three, seven, eight, zero ESP and HRP listener line seven, one, three, seven, eight, zero, three, seven, seven, six, blankers. What do you believe in? I believe that as much as I thought that Ohio State was going to blow the doors off of Indiana and that Indiana might be exposed, the fact that we had so many upsets has just put a gaping hole in how big the opening is for Indiana to be one of the final 12 teams. When you look at Colorado, Alabama, BYU, A&M, Ole Miss, all losing, the fact is is that not only did Indiana benefit, but you looked at it and go, this whole thing's a crapshoot for the most part. Yeah. I think it's a crapshoot on the bubble. Yeah. I don't think it's a crapshoot. These are the top two. I mean, we're talking about Georgia, one loss away from possibly sliding out and now they're going to be in the driver's seat to get to get in the SEC Championship game. But overall, even the top teams have, aside from Oregon, they have blemishes. We don't see these powerhouses like the dominant dominant that we've seen in the past. No, I think it's, I'm with you. I don't think that there's a major dominant team. Remember, we were talking last week that I think whenever we get 10 years of information on the 12-team playoff, assuming they hit 12 teams for 10 years, I think we'll look back at this season as having a pretty soft bubble. I don't think the bubble's always going to be this soft. So I'm with you on that, but at the top, it actually leads perfectly into, to my first, I believe, I think there are only four teams that can win it all. Because I do feel like, yes, not a perfect team, but I still feel like it is top-heavy. I think there are only four teams in the nation that can win the national title. I think it's Oregon, Ohio State, and Texas and Georgia. I think two teams from the Big Ten, two teams from the SEC, Oregon, Ohio State, Texas, Georgia. The most pushback I've gotten with that take is Tennessee. And I will concede that Tennessee's probably my fifth team if I had to power rank chances to win the national championship. I'm not willing to include them in that top four though, but those are my four teams that can win it all. I really, I think that that's probably, that's probably the top tier. Yeah, I'm not, I think Tennessee just has too many inconsistencies when they're supposed to come up big, when they're supposed to get the production out of, you know, receivers and their offense, when their offense from week to week is supposed to be so effective. I just think you're right. There's a line drawn in the sand, those are probably the four teams that can win it all. There were teams that early on impressed me. There were teams that late started to impress, like South Carolina is an impressive team, but they're not even going to get in because they kind of handled their own destiny early on. They're a hot team early and then kind of showed you who they were, they're twin consistent. Alabama, after what they did to Georgia, you're like, "Damn, that's a hell of a football team." And then they proceeded to show you that they don't belong. So the two teams are the big 10, they're really, they're scheduled alone. They don't really, aside from playing each other, and that was a hell of a football game. The rest of the big 10 is so much lesser than, and you're, and from a cream rising to the top perspective in the SEC, those are the clear cut two best teams. Yeah, see, I think Alabama's loss again, or win against Georgia was actually kind of flu-key. I feel like if you go back and watch that game, you're like, "Well, which one of these two teams is the better football team?" I think that Georgia was the better football team, they just had like every break go against them. What else do you believe, Lancaster? I believe that the fact that Ohio State blew out Indiana didn't have nearly the meaning that I thought it was going to mean because of the fact that your punter had a ball slipped through his hands, then you gave up a punt return for a touchdown. The score looked like it was more dominant than it was, but at the end of the day, I expected more from Ohio State than I saw, and because of that, I'm not as high on Ohio State as I was, because I actually thought that if you played on a neutral field, Ohio State would beat Oregon, and could be one of those teams that could compete with whoever comes out of the SEC, and I was a little, I came out a little less than when it comes to Ohio State after that game on Saturday. They won by 23. But yeah, but Jeremy, you gave up 14 points with special teams. I mean, they just, the fact is, is that Indiana's offensive line got exposed, but that's Indiana. When I see them playing and try to envision them playing against one of those three other teams that you mentioned, I just, I don't, I just don't see them being a dominant football team. All right. Good thing with a playoff that it'll, it'll all play out. I thought that that late touchdown wasn't, wasn't great for Indiana, but then like you said, with all the losses, it didn't really cost them a whole lot. I believe that the gimmicky two point conversion over time is really, really bad. I'm not a huge fan of college overtime to begin with. I think it's very gimmicky. I don't like gimmicky OT periods. All of a sudden you're going to play football and you're the possession arrow or the, the possession game, the field position game, and then suddenly here, here you go. Here's the ball. The 25 goes score, but then what makes it especially bad is once you go to that third overtime, now everything's just a two point conversion. That isn't real football. And look, regular season who cares, it's just a regular season game. What if there's a playoff game that's ended that way? What if it's the national championship game? What if somebody loses the national championship game because of this stupid gimmicky third overtime? You got to go for two, not even go for two. It's just a two point conversion. I hate it. It's stupid. If you need to keep it in the regular season because you don't want games to go seven over times, okay, I can kind of understand that, but once you get into the postseason, they should flip the overtime rule like the NFL does, get rid of the stupid two point conversion OT that starts in the third overtime and just play it out. Play it out, baby. I honestly think that the best overtime is the NFL playoff format for overtime. Where both teams are going to get the chance to possess the football, you know, if it's a field goal and then a touchdown, you lose. But other than that, it's as fair as you can get because I'm with you. I mean, for those that stayed up and saw that ending to what would turn out to be a hell of an exciting football game to watch, just going for two point conversion sucks. It's awful. And even from the to the point you're making, if you score and you want to go and just kick the extra point and take your chances yet again, go for it. I mean, let them do that, but forcing them into all these different things instead of just letting the best team win by moving the football scoring points, doing what they want to do and then playing defense, it's it's it's I can't can't stand it. They have a playoff game in that way. Oh, man. I'd be limited. Now they came into like a 10 30 11. What do you mean stay up to watch the end? Oh, I heard a lot of people said, Oh, I went to bed after, you know, we're towards the end. I'm like, I don't know how you do that. Just simply because of the fact that it was so close and down the down the stretch like that was so exciting. Yeah, I didn't really have a dog in the fight. So what? Are these your friends that go to bed at nine? No, I mean, none of the I don't have friends. It was a weekend. It was a weekend. It was a later finish. It was it was like I think at least 11 something when the game ended, wasn't it? You got a game going to triple overtime. It's a great game and they're going to bed. Right, man. I just I just report what I hear. Okay. I'm not saying it was me. I'm saying there were people out there that were shutting it off early. Abigail said she was done after three quarters. She just couldn't say she's done. See, she's done. There you go. And she's a young Abigail is a casual. She's going to bed by nine p.m. See, there you go. Yeah, but you get up and work out in the morning. Don't you? How do you know that spies on you? Because you've told us that you're training to do your first ever, uh, uh, bodybuilding. Oh, yeah. I am. Oh, yeah, you forgot that. I'm a great listener. I listen, uh, Kenny Dillingham is a bonafide psychopath and I love every bit of it. I love every bit of the fact that Kenny Dillingham is a bonafide psychopath. That's the way college coaches should be. He's sitting there dropping rounders quotes in his postgame, paid demand his money. He's yelling at referees and everyone ever, he's in the wrong when he's standing next to students. That guy is awesome. He's PC. Something about that finished with Arizona State collective. Yeah. Well, that was nuts. And the fact is, is that the one thing that I think people kind of lose sight of in the whole thing that the, the, the Hail Mary was completed. If they penalize the home team, regardless, then he's got the arm straight to get that thing in the end zone. We'll be talking about it different now. Huh. I didn't think about that. Yeah. It's an interesting point. That's the first thing that I thought of was like, Hey, wait a minute now. It took like 10, 15 minutes to clear the field and that should be on the home team. And that should be a 15 yard penalty. You give them 15 yards that falls in the end zone. Yeah. I don't know that you get penalized for that though. Mm. That's a bad penalty. They thought the game was over like they're not doing anything like malicious. That'd be a bad penalty. That'd be, that'd be, that'd be criminal. Lamont says he will leave that with three losses that Bama will still be in the playoffs. This is going to be interesting what the committee does with all the losses that happened this past week. Now, what's, what's interesting about A&M is they still control their own destiny. I mean, they be in Texas. They're in the SEC championship game. You win the SEC championship game, not only are you in the playoffs, but you're getting a buy in the first round, zero five one one. I believe that the portal has ruined college football to disagree. I disagree that it's ruined college football. I think that it's actually created more parody to college football. It certainly changed the landscape. Can I still love college football? I love college football, but you definitely have drawn the haves and the have-nots and it's more clear cut because the combination of the NIL money and the fact that it's basically free agency in college football has basically come to the point of whoever's got the biggest, you know, backing with the most money in their account in the deepest pockets, have a clear cut advantage. You can buy whatever you know. I don't know. I don't know if the gap is greater. Like, it was the gap five years ago whenever Alabama was just killing everybody greater than it is now. Like, you just talked about how the top is not. I think there's more teams at the top, but, but, you know, and the money has changed so much to the point where, you know, Matt rule says you need over $2 million to get a five star quarterback. And then that was completely rewritten by the whole fiasco with LSU in Michigan. Now you need 10 and a half million dollars to go get a guy. I don't know how that changes the gap though, like, like, was the gap between the number one team in the country and the number 10 team in the country greater 10 years ago than it currently is? I feel the divide has actually gotten closer. I think there is more parity this particular season, but I think overall as time goes on, I think that the deep pockets are going to be the ones that went out. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I guess, I guess we do need more time to get a good, like, you know, pool of information. That's a fair point. Uh, seven, one, three, seven, eight. Jerry, he's been glad. I got one that you're going to love though for the other, I believe. I believe that you and I both know better than most that you have to have. You and I, you and I, Jeremy and me, Joel, we have to have, we know better than most, you need good rim protection. And if you're going to go on the road and bring your own hoop and you want to dunk on the opponent, you, one, have to win the football game. And two, you can't give up possession of said hoop and have their logo put on your backboard. And then your walk of shame is your equipment guys trying to walk it out of the stadium. Ole Miss brought their hoop to the sideline at Florida. And we're trying to dunk on the Gators. By the end of the game, the Gators had their logo on the backboard and had the Ole Miss equipment guys doing the walk of shame with it off the field. You can't have that. Thanks, Jeremy. Where's Jeremy? I understand like a five second pause if he decided that he wasn't going with me on that one. I don't know. He's getting up and walking around. Okay. So maybe we've got issues. Which I already knew I had. Wanna go to break? Yeah. You got my bookie. All right. We're going to go to break and we're going to hopefully get Jeremy back on the line for the second half of the show. We got one half in the books and one half still to go. We're going to come back with a whole lot more, but before that, I do want to remind you the fact that Thanksgiving weekend means there is a ton of games and a lot of games to bet when you don't want to hang out with the family, but you want to put money down on some sports because you got a chance to actually come out a big winner, then I tell you to go to my bookie.ag and Thursday because it's Thanksgiving means there's a ton of sports that you can cash in on because my bookie.ag is the place you need to be when you put down on money. Thursday, they have that whole forgiveness bet and it's perfect on the day of thanks. 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It's my bookie.ag and our promo code is bet nine, seven, five, mail call. It's a mailbag Monday with a killer bees. You've got mail. Hello. Can you hear me blank? Now I can. Yes. You guys just told me you didn't like my take on don't get down. I didn't hear it. I was actually what was it? I was actually intrigued. I was on the edge of my head. Have you seen this whole? The whole old miss was traveling their own basketball hoop and every time anybody made a play, they got the dunk and not only did they crap the get against bet against Florida, but Florida somehow got their logo on the backboard. Yeah. And we're dunking on it. And then the walk of shame was the equipment guys for Ole Miss had to had to escort their basket back to the bus and the plane with the Florida logo on it. They didn't even get it off. Yeah, I did see that. That was funny. I like a good little college troll. I like a good little troll period. Some people call me a troll. I don't know where they get that from though. I don't really see it in myself. 713-780-ESP. What is your question for the B713-780-3776? First question is about the Fred Van Bleed ejection. What did you make of that? Should have you been suspended? It's not a good look for a guy that's supposed to be the guy that's supposed to be the veteran leader of this team that's setting the example, but at the end of the day, if they suspended my understand, if they don't, to me, it's not that big he hasn't been playing that well. It means more playing time for the other young guys that I'm fine with too, so I'm fine with it either way. I thought he made contact with the official, clearly not, because the NBA came out today. Actually, he made a doku who came out today. He said that Fred Van Bleed will not be suspended, so he must not have made contact with the official. The video that I saw, I thought he poked him in the nose. Yeah, it was close. But at the same point, that might be just frustration coming out on Fred's part, because he has been less than for the majority of the season. He had that one game where he was like 10 for 11 from the floor. Other than that, he has been not good more than he's been the guy he's supposed to be for 40-something. Sure, but I mean, talking specifically about the ejection. Oh, about the ejection. Yeah, I mean, I thought that he made contact with the nose, but I mean, if you're not getting suspended, they must have looked at every single camera angle and realized that nope. Now, I hope I help e-mails right, because normally I would wait until I heard from the league, because of course your coach said, yeah, you hope so. I don't think e-mail would say that he's not going to be suspended if he hadn't heard from the league. And he was probably right, but I've also worked like they announced the, they announced a fine too. Yeah, if the league announces the fine, then they would also announce the ejection at that point. You're right about that. Yeah. I've worked with coaches, by the way, they thought if they got out ahead of it, that the league didn't want the bad look, and they might lean your way, but yeah. The coaches were that because that's a bad take. Just, I'm not going to, I'm not calling them out at this point, but I, more than once, I'll tell you that. Come on. I'll be soft. More than he's soft. Call him out. Okay. What's your question for the B713780 ESPN last week, I asked that the Texas defense is just good against bad quarterbacks. This week, I'm asking you, the Texas defense is good period. I think their pass rush is above average. I think their, their pass rush is very good. I think when healthy, their interior defensive line can be very good, I'm beginning to question their secondary more, including their best corner. Stingley has been the best of the bunch, but overall, the last couple of games have told you that you need to have some concern about the secondary. Yeah. I like their defense. I do think that their defense is good. I think that their pass rush is elite, quite frankly. Now, there are areas that you could get to this defense, and I think it's in the middle of the field. You can run up the middle against this defense. I think that you can attack the Texans over the middle in the passing game. And yesterday, it was over the top a little bit too. I think the Texans took Titans a little bit lightly. I think they took Will Evans a little bit lightly. Another texture. Melbag Monday, 71378, 03776. What's it going to take for the Texans to be an elite NFL team? I think consistency, I think the fact that they have to be able to score in the second half of football games, I think the fact that you had, it all starts with the offensive line. I think in order to be a team that could be considered elite because of what we just told you about the defense, which can be better than average, even with some holes that they have to work on. The fact is, is that when you have a quarterback that basically has an internal clock where the alarm is going haywire every time he receives the ball from center because the fact it's expecting to get hit, that affects your pass game, your run game. Everything that happens on offense is predicated by an offensive line that has been completely and utterly atrocious compared to what it was supposed to be. So I think that for starters, I'd say your offensive line has to be a lot better. I also have this take as well. I think that they say things and do another. So I feel like they need to like fully like put action into their words. Like the post game shows, they're telling like, oh, I need to work on this, but there's nothing to like involve that. We haven't seen that. What if they're just incapable though, because like I agree with that and they're saying the same things over and over, but what if they're just incapable of putting the action behind the word? See, that's a fear. Why don't you say that? Like be honest with your fans, you know, I think the other thing to Abigail's point is then why are you paying all this money and investing all of these assets in this offensive line if they truly are just less than I mean, it shouldn't be that way. Like that's, that's a failure in either your assessment or the value in production. Like one thing is failing to get you to that point, but I mean, you you should be spinning resources in your offensive line to protect a young quarterback. So I don't fault them for spinning resources in an offensive line to protect the quarterback, but where is the mistake? Is it in the evaluation or is it with the coaching up and the developing of the players? We all know it's a failure, but what is leading to the failure and that's something that they're going to have to address. But like I could sit here and say like I want to be able to run a 440 again like I did back in my high school days, but at this point in my life, I'm just not capable of doing it. But like that's where you say say it, but you say, okay, but tonsil and and and check. Those are two guys that yes, they've proven that they can do it, but you don't extend guys and give them the kind of resources and money at a certain point. If you don't realize they're on the downside or they're closer to the end than they are continuing at a certain level and even and even Howard. It's evaluation, but I don't I mean, I just I just have a hard time putting a whole lot of weight into what a player says. Like I have a whole lot of I really have a whole lot of trouble putting value in what anybody has to say. Like somebody can sit here and tell me I have a great plan to give you five million dollars. Okay. Well, I don't really believe that. You know what I mean? So it's one thing to say. It's another thing to do it to Abigail's point, but my fear is that they're not capable of doing it. The desire is there. Their goal is there. The mind's in the right spot, but they just can't actively do it. See, but that that's where you go. Okay. I think from a talent evaluation standpoint, it completely is pointed at them by saying, well, where me tonsil is considered top five. He's got to play like it. So does Howard. So does, so does Shaq. Me. No, the return on investment on the offensive line is atrocious. I agree with you there, but to me, it's where is the fault and also think they're really bad at playing as a unit. So I think Laramie tonsil is good. I think Todd is Howard's playing pretty good. Now, the interior of the offensive line for the weakness lies, but they're just not playing terrific as a unit. I think it's scheme. I think it's protection. I think it's all of it. One nine seven zero. Do you know someone that is in a cult, not a, not a cult. What would you say? What would you, what is to homeless witnesses? That's just a religion. Yeah. I think that's a religion. I don't think it's a cult. Yeah, I don't think I know anybody in a cult, but I grew up with a, one of my good friends is was a Jehovah's Witness, and there, there was a lot of interesting conversations that were had to try and understand all of what they do and why they do it. The only, the only people that I know that are in a cult reside in college station at a 10 Texas A, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. It was a joke. Do not get after me. 12th, man. It was a joke. No, I don't know anybody that's in a cult. At least I don't know. That they're in a cult. It's always a possibility. The ones you don't know. Do you know anybody in a cult? I mean, all my brothers go to A&M, so, no, she started Jeremy's side of this. No, I'm not on Jeremy's side. I just didn't go to A&M because I was kind of uncomfortable. Yeah. Okay. We'll leave it at that since we are the flagship of the Texas A&M fight naggies who were playing the Longhorns this weekend, we're going to have great guests throughout the week and at the big game coming up on Saturday. As you know by now, you say Kakuchi's gone. He's gone three years, 63 million. He's going to the city of angels will never experience a winning season ever again. But would you have given him the three year, 63 million? Did the Astros winner lose the USA Kakuchi trait? 713-780-377-6, it's the BZ, ESPN 97-5 and ESPN 92-5. You listening to the killer bees with Joel Blank and Jeremy Brannan? On ESPN 97-5 and 92-5. Broadcasting life in the Veritex community bank studios. No, #30 is rivalry-reviewed Texas A&M facing off against the University of Texas. Kyle Filtz, stay tuned to ESPN 97-5-92-5 for extensive coverage of this historic game presented by Rebecca Creek Distillery. You'll hear interviews with great guests from both sides and spirited conversation from all of us. We're going to be having an Andrew Monaco on 3.15 on Wednesday. Talk about the Aggie perspective, of course, the voice of the fighting Texas Aggies. Efforting Craig Way, but his show is at the same time as our show, so trying to make that work on both parties. But also connect to our coverage on the ESPN Houston YouTube channel, social media, enjoy Rebecca, Creek, Whiskey, Enchanted Rock, vodka, and Texas Ranger Whiskey to celebrate the rivalries return. Do you want to say this last part, Blankers, since you don't have a Texas connection? Nope. Say Gig 'em and hook 'em for me, please. Gig 'em and hook 'em. There we go. Thank you for doing that. I legally cannot do that. I get fined if I do that. All right. You say Kakuchi, three years, $63 million deal to the Angels. What was your reaction when you saw that news and would you have given them that number? I was surprised because of the number, because of the finances, because we were talking about maybe getting 27 or more because of what he was able to do, how he put it together, and the way he finished the season. The fact that we're talking about 2021 a year seems to be like it was more than a reasonable price for a guy that was hyper-effective for you, that I was hoping that the Astros might have stayed in that conversation a little bit longer, regardless of what else that they do from a pitching perspective, because he was so good. Do I understand why they walked away? Yes. Do they have a surplus of starting pitching? Yes. But because that was such a significantly lesser number than what I was expecting, I was a little disappointed because of that. Yeah. Behannen says, "What are the Angels doing?" I answered it when I said they're trying to win 75 games. I would not have given Kakuchi this deal, but I do find it funny that this report has come out that the Astros were interested in a reunion with Kakuchi. Well, if you were so interested, why didn't you get the deal done? Like, you must not have been that interested. You weren't interested to the tune of $63 million for three years. I can tell you that you weren't not that interested. Like, what is your level of interest? Well, what in $63 million? So like, the whole "we were interested" to me comes across, quite frankly, as a bluff. And I think it's insulting to the fan base, too. Oh, we were interested. Hey, trust us, guys. We were there. We were in the market. We were in the conversation. We tried to bring him home for you, the fan base, a guy that you love. He really tried on you saying, well, did you? Because he just went to a division rival for three years, 63 million. So I don't think that your interest level was all that high. I think this is a whole PR stunt, guys. Yes. We're trying to spend money. Look at us over here. We were second place. We were the runner up. We were the bridesmaid. Well, you must not have been willing to get three years, 63 million. And not only that, Jeremy, it's just the imaging, the imaging of looking like, hey, we did everything in our power to try and keep him here. But at a certain point, we just, we had to pull out of the discussions, but we gave it our old college try. We kept pushing. We were in the discussions and we've seen this happen so many times with the Astros over the years where the fact is, is they want you to believe that they were in it till the bitter end and they were making offers and they did their best to try and bring them back when we kind of realized a while back, like they're not going to do that. They're probably not in the conversation. It was never really as real as everybody wants it to be made out to be. But at the end of the day, they say they try. Yeah. So that's where, that's where I stay on the cocooch thing. But I would not have given him that with the roster that you have, I mean, cocooch, he's going to be in his mid thirties with this deal. Yes, he was really good for you, but he had not been really good in his career. He's been like always somebody who had high potential, but kind of struggled to hit that potential. You also have a lot of starters coming back. I do think that the Astros need a starter in free agency. I think that starter will be Justin Verlander on a one year deal with like, you know, vesting options, maybe even a club option for the second year. But I think they need one starter, not a starter that I'm going to pay $63 million, not a starter that's going to make $21 million in a single year. So I'm okay with letting Kakuchi walk, but I just find the whole, yeah, we were interested to be a bluff, quite frankly, and I think it's insulting. We've seen it with a lot of the big names. You may, you may have to brace yourself that you're going to see it one, at least one more time before the end of free agency, because I think that to a certain degree they want to bring them back more so than the other guys. But I think that at the end of the day, if they're able to say, hey, we were, we were in it. We were, we were giving them our best offers over and over again, trying to do whatever it took that they can actually think that everybody's going to be cool with it and they can walk away comfortably going, we gave it a shot. We tried our best. It's just he got an offer we couldn't compete with. Yeah, I kind of get the smell of that too with the whole like a Schwab, Schwab knows that the Astros give them a six year deal, like six year contract offer, okay, what seems like they're leaking out a little bit of information. Look, we're in the mix. Look, we're in the running. We weren't going to go to six. We went to six. Was it Haman or the other guy that were like reporting the Astros of a contract in? Yeah, I think it was Haman. Well, there you go. Who told Haman that they have a contract in? Well, it's the Astros trying to send the message that they're really trying. They're giving the old college effort. So just pay attention to that. If they don't sign Bergman, but they were in on Bergman, that's the whole care thing. We gave Korea a contract. Yeah, but he was never accepting that contract. It's the whole crane with click. Oh, we offered click a deal was a one year deal that he was never accepting. So like they do that PR stuff. They've done it in the past. We were there on Correa. We were there on click. No, you weren't. You never gave them a serious offer that they even bought that. We just covered a lot of this in the covering the Texans and the fact that you're you can use the media as a tool in so many ways and you can put it out there when you need them. And there's also times when you're not going to give them a single thing, but when you need them, they are a tool that could be effective for you. Coaches do it when they don't like personal confrontations with their players. So they put out in the media and Van Gundy was the king of that. If you want to talk about, you know, manipulating the system, there's tons of owners and general managers across sports that utilize the media to get out the narrative that they want. And you can go around the ball. You can say when when Anthony Rizzo was a free agent and they put out that the Astros had made an offer and they were in the running for it, it was just to make sure that the Yankees came up a step to get where he wanted to be so he could get where he wanted to be. Yeah. Darrell Moore used to do it all the time. I mean, I've told this story before, but Michael knew you didn't find out he would that the media knew he was getting fired before he got fired because they, the, the, Darrell Moore, he thought he was doing the, the, the storybreakers across basketball a favor by giving them the info ahead of time so that maybe when he needed them for something, they'd help him out too, which is never going to happen. But that's what they do. Yeah. We know that. Uh, we, we know that's, uh, that's the case and I feel like we're getting that a little bit here with crane this off season. Now. Kakuchi's gone. You traded to Jake Bloss, Joey Loperfito, Willie Wagner, Billy's boy, uh, for you say, can you determine who won or lost this trade now that Kakuchi's gone? I think a little bit more time has to pass to see just truly what, how these prospects turn out. I think Loperfito's the guy that everybody's going to keep the closest eye on because everybody, he was the apple of everyone's eye early in the season here. Uh, and there were thoughts that this guy could be a long term player for your organization. But this is a chance you have to take. This is the flyer that, you know, that maybe the price was too high, but we knew the market had said that the price was going to be very high. But without Kakuchi, are you in the same position, even though you got bounced in the first round of the playoffs? I think so. Yeah, you do. I have a hard time believing it because the fact that they make the playoffs without Kakuchi. I believe that the division was turned over, was solidified when you got him and he was what nine, nine and O and his first nine starts. So I think that he played a big role in getting you the division title. But when you come up short, like they did and get bounced out in the wildcard round, it looks like it was a catastrophe for the Astros. 7, 1, 3, 7, 8, 0, ESP and HRP listen, like I think it's too early to tell too. I need to see what these prospects do before I'm ready to call winter in this because if they don't amount to big leaguers, then I think the Astros won the trade, but all it takes is one guy. Like if Willie Wagner turns into a consistent everyday infielder, now people are like hopping in my mentions today saying, well, he would have been the replacement of third. The Astros gave up on the idea of Willie Wagner is a third baseman. He might be a second baseman, but even that is pushing it. He's probably a first baseman DH, which is why he's kind of a tweener as a prospect. Like he's not good enough defensively to play at a premium defensive position. He might not be a good enough hitter to play at a premium offensive position. So let's see how their careers go before I'm determining a winner. But Kakuchi leaving you does lessen the value that you're getting on your end of the trade. Do you think that it's more about Wagner than it is Bloss or Loper Fieda? I think Wagner has the best chance. Yeah. I think I would go Joey first and I don't think Joey Loper Fieda is ever going to be able to hit big league pitching enough. I think he strikes out way too much, maybe, maybe so, but at the same time, he kind of got hot at the end of the year to where you're like, you know what, he's still young enough that he could, he could pan out and then we're sleeping on a fact that Bloss is probably never going to be a one, two in a rotation, but he could be a long standing three, four, five. Where did Loper Fieda get hot? He had under 200 in Toronto. I thought at the end of the year he had a couple of, he put a, the last couple of weeks together, a couple of weeks together where he had several home runs and started and started to hit the baseball. Let's go month of September for Loper Fiedo. Loper Fiedo in the month of September had his batting average overall on the year drop from 223 to 214. He hit. He did hit. He did, he did a whole burn in September. He had zero home runs in September. Maybe it wasn't September. Maybe it was in late August or August, but I know that there was a stretch that he won, he had two home runs in August. He hit one on August 18th. He hit one on August 23rd. Okay, then I was wrong. I remember, I remember seeing that there were a couple of games that he hit, you know, back to back or something like that, that he was hitting bombs extra base hits. He was getting hot, but I mean, again, would you trade prospects for a, a, a, a, a, a, he hit one 85 in September, Jeremy, I said, okay, then maybe, but it just took a while to load. I needed to get the information. It took forever to load. I mean, the big, bigger thing to me is, is this is like when you go back to the whole conversation of giving up prospects for a proven talent, what, you know, there were people that wanted you to give Alex Bragman for Chris sale that turned out better that you didn't, but there's also plenty of times like the Verlander trade and other trades where you give up the, the, the, the possibilities and the potential of young prospects to get the proven player that you have, that could make a difference for you that given time in that given season. At that point, I thought that yeah, the price was too high because I thought Loprofito was the guy they weren't going to part with, but at the end of the day, if you're going to tell me the guy you got was nine and oh, or whatever he was, you know, would have the success that he had down the stretch. I'll live with that. Yeah. I want to see what the rest of the, the trade does before I'm ready to clear a winner. I do think that what the Astros got was way better than I ever thought they were going to get with Kikuchi. Yeah, they're calling him Joey Operfito is what they're calling because he's over every single night. Joey, I'm going to pick it up and hit like a monster this next year. I like Joey. We met him. He's good kids. So yeah, I mean, I'm kind of rooting for him, but I also don't want the Astros to be like looking back at this trade and be like, Oh no, we screwed it up. Like the worst thing that could happen is low Perfito turns into an all star. So like I don't want that to happen. I want them to have mild success and make a good career living, but I don't want them to like turn into a stud. What would the Texans have done to earn the idea they can roll out of bed and beat an opponent? Like they did yesterday. They thought they could just show up, roll out of bed and beat an opponent. What have they done to think they could do that? 713-780-ESP and it's the bees on ESPN 97-5 and ESPN 92-5. When you think about businesses that are selling through the roof, all birds or skims, sure, you think about a great product, a cool brand and brilliant marketing, but an often overlooked secret is actually the businesses behind the business making selling and for the shoppers buying, simple. For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify, home of the number one check out on the planet and the not so secret secret with shop pay, that boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning way less carts going abandoned and way more sales going. So if you're into growing your business, your commerce platform better be ready to sell wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling on the web. In your store, in their feed and everywhere in between. Businesses that sell more sell on Shopify. Upgrade your business and get the same check out Skims uses. 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