https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/free-agents/_/year/2026/position/qb Not a good list, might take a shot at Marriota but most of them are terrible, but then so is CJ. DD
Not gonna happen. He's all that Cincy has going for them. They trade Burrow, they might as well move the franchise because that will be the death blow for the Bengals.
I can't see them signing him to an extension - not after this debacle. And if he comes back as QB1 the glare of the spotlight on him is going to be relentless. Every nuance, every decision, every mistake he makes will be examined under a microscope and he's already shown that he cannot handle that kind of pressure. I expect him to get benched at some point which will leave the Texans facing another rebuild - one that will end up wasting a magnificent defense.
People.......... CJ Stroud was 11th in QBR; 17th in passer rating, ahead of Lawrence, Mayfield, Williams, Mahomes.... There is plenty of room between being very frustrated with/worried about his playoff performance... and questioning whether he should be in the NFL. Maybe take a deep breath and look at how the other divisional round QBs performed?... Drake Maye was awful; so was Purdy, Josh Allen - Stafford didn't throw a TD and completed less than 50% of his passes and Caleb Williams threw three interceptions. Darnold was pretty good - but five passes into his night, his team led, 17-0, and he only threw 12 passes the final 3 quarters. NONE of this excuses Stroud performance. But I do think we're entering an era where teams have had so much time to adjust to the passing game boom that the days of Mahomes being able to single-handidly win games is probably over. It is REALLY hard to play QB in the NFL right now.
QBR is not a serious metric. Also, what matters is that CJ Stroud just set an NFL record for the most combined fumbles and interceptions in a single postseason in NFL history.... in 2 games. And he played even worse than those numbers show. CJ Stroud single handedly destroyed the Texans. Dozens of other QB's, to include backup QB's could have won that game yesterday. Can be bounce back? Maybe... but right now the Texans go into next season with the worst QB in the AFC South and one of the worst in the AFC.
The QB situation in Houston is tough. I couldn't fathom paying Stroud the $50 million a year contract that Stroud and Muleghetta are planning to negotiate for with the Texans in the offseason. Especially when Mills is on the books for next season at $8 million. There is not a $40 million yearly difference between Stroud and Mills.
There is no agent that can get stroud that money right now only thing I can see is they bank on 2026. But an agent can’t talk his way out of film.
Everything is relative and situation specific. Drake Maybe was awful because the Texans D was great. And within that awfulness, he made excellent TD dime passes that his receivers made great catches on. CJ was awful in his decision-making against pressure + his accuracy. If you're just comparing stats vs stats, CJ had the worst QB rating of them all. But it's not just the stats, which are only summaries. We all watched the game - he was terrible in almost every play where you had to hold your breath. So your cherry picked stats from the playoffs don't help. As for the regular season, yes he was completely average (good at some things, bad at others). But yes, those two games have me completely questioning, not whether he should be in the NFL, but whether he should be a Texan. We're trying to reach a higher level here.
CJ has no leverage. He’ll be lucky to keep his job. I’ve been a Stroud supporter but he’s had his head up his ass for awhile now & his playoff performance this year is all time embarrassing. He has nothing to threaten the Texans with, what’s he going to do? Leave? At this point, a lot of folks probably wouldn’t care. Especially those who play defense for the Texans and played their asses off yesterday. They’d welcome the change.
The Patriots made plays on defense gotta give them that but Maye was bad, CJ just kept them in the game with his historic incompetence. They’re all professionals out there bro & both QBs were not impressive. It’s one of the sloppiest playoff games you’ll ever see.
Maybe not the worst but he's CLEARLY behind Lawrence and Jones (when he comes back). And if the Titans get their sh*t together, he WILL find himself on the bottom looking up.
cincy will hold burrow all day for sure, burrow has to flat out say get me the **** out of here. You don’t think he’s watching the playoffs and wondering, man my team sucks and I’m rotting away here? only way is if burrow starts talking.
Ask yourself an honest question. Did DeMeco Ryans do what was best for his team yesterday, or what was best for one player?
Maye wasn’t bad. Our defense was dominant. A pick on a Hail Mary and 3 strip sacks where his arm was hit as he was throwing after stepping up in the pocket. The fumble rushing for the first down was careless. But he made throws that CJ didn’t. The pass to Douglass was perfect. The pass to Diggs was only where Diggs could catch it. The pass to Boutte was a great catch, but no one else is catching it if he doesn’t. Maye made plays, our defense made plays. But there’s wasn’t flat out stupid decisions to turn the ball over or bad ball placement like CJ
Every starting QB, save Darnold, maybe Nix, had bad games this weekend. As I said, that doesn't excuse Stroud's performance - it probably was the worst of the 8 (though....... Allen was *really* bad and a total prayer is doing a lot to distract from how bad Caleb was). The point I was trying to make is that I think how we evaluate QBs is about to change. I think the Peyton Manning/Patrick Mahomes era of 50+ TDs is going to be a thing of the past. Defenses have caught up to the passing game, and I think more "good" games are going to look like Maye's game yesterday, where a few good plays cover-up a lot of bad plays. IOW, we need to recalibrate our ceiling for Stroud, and understand that the QB moving forward is going to be asked to do less.
Nice post... Texans dont need a superstar qb.. They need a qb that can manage the offense, especially with this defense. T_Man
CJ pulled off his best Brian Hoyer impression yesterday (oof). We definitely need to reset our expectations for him going forward (if there is a path forward with him), but I think some of us are being delusional about contract negotiations. Definitely not a top-of-the-market guy, but you're not gonna get away with paying him some pedestrian amount like $20mm/yr on an extension, either. This screams "fifth-year option then franchise tag or trade him" unless there's some miracle improvement next year. I have to think that this is "rock bottom" and it can't get any worse than this because I really don't want us to have to start over at QB again. Like, our defense was special this year. It sucks not having a reliable signal caller because this franchise has been down the road of "great defense, no QB/bad QB" before and it's not pretty at the end.
