The good thing is Stroud has 8 games left to prove his hataz wrong. and by hataz I mean his offensive line hehe.
It's got to be more than just our offensive line. Sure, that's a huge part of it, but we have the same players and coaches. Maybe other coaches figured out how best to attack after last year. All I know is last year Stroud had 18 sacks after 8 games as a rookie compared to 30 this year. He also had 14 TDs and 1 interception compared to 11/4 this year. Maybe he's afraid of throwing a pick, maybe he's not seeing all the open men, or hesitating a split second too long. It's more than just our offensive line. A big part of it's on Slowik and Stroud can't be totally let off the hook either.
Being able to pull Noah Brown off the bench last year was underrated. They don't really have a guy like that who can look like a legit top guy for a 2 or 3 game stretch. He had a ton of games with 1 or no catches, but when they needed him, he pulled out games with 6, 7, and 8 catches. I respect Robert Woods' profesionalism, but he's not going to replicate that.
Agreed, Woods is solid, and a very underrated blocker, but Brown took over a couple of games last year. I still don't understand letting him go.
Of all the problems the Texans have on offense, Stroud is like #48... He's lost trust in his protection which has sped up his clock which has hurt his mechanics which has hurt his accuracy.
I think he's regressed a bit. Sophomore slump. But the biggest thing is his lack of pass protection. He'd be having a great season with even half decent protection. Let's pray.
I think it is difficult to determine "regression" when CJ is playing under completely different circumstances this season than he was last season. I'd argue his ability to improvise and throw on the run have improved compared to last season.
And that's fair too. Not going to dismiss your point on that. The regression I see from my side could very well be exclusively the OL play. Time will tell. I hope it improves a bit this season for the OL, for CJ's sake.
Pretty impressive it's not a lot higher considering how often he's running for his life this season...
The obvious difference in this o-line last year vs this year is having Kenyon Green. I wish the young man success in the future but he’s just not working out here. PFF not only rated him as the lowest starting guard but it’s by a significant margin. At this point most of us would probably be happier if we had the second worst starting guard cause it likely would be a noticeable upgrade. Sometimes subtraction is the only way to move forward. But my biggest concern is whether the o-line even realizes their overall mistakes, it feels very business as usual over there. My guess is they don’t believe there is anything wrong and it’s all on coaching or something else by the way they’ve played these past few games. Sometimes winning is a curse, hopefully this past loss will get these guys to change.
