The most immediate answer is that it is highly unlikely there's a better alternative available. The more nuanced take is that you have to be careful not to let two very ugly games cloud your judgement because if rookie year CJ Stroud is still in there, you'd be foolish to let that go. You can look at CJ's game log and see the exact moment everything changed: @ Green Bay last October. The Texans were 5-1. Stroud had a 98.6 rating through six games. And then the Packers absolutely beat him to death... 79.6 from that moment forward. I don't know to what extent we have to hold Stroud accountable for not letting the pressure affect his play - but it very obviously has. So now we engage in a much more nuanced discussion: is the damage done or can they fix it? The way he played yesterday, especially - that was a QB uncomfortable in his pocket, unsure of himself and pressing to try and make plays. I will stomp my feet and scream forever that Caserio's offseason - hiring an inexperienced OC and bargain-bin shopping for the OL - deserves far more vitriol than CJ's performance in the face of it. They set Stroud up to fail.
Well, they had a pretty good RB last year, and were terrible running the football. The discourse this entire offseason is going to be CJ STROUD!, and it's going to prevent people - like me, maybe you - there are dozens of us! - who fully recognize that the offensive system built around Stroud should cost people their jobs and that QB - to whatever degree it is an issue - is not by any stretch THE biggest issue.
The talent on offense with the injuries is so horrific. How many of the 10 main guys who played offense are above average? 0? Maybe 1 if you want to say AE is above average?
If the Texan cared about the fans Davis Mills would've started the second half of that game yesterday. CJ will be the starter, here’s hoping they draft a "guy" or Davis Mills takes a step and one of them Tom Brady him the next time he gets injured
I guess it comes down to glass half empty or half full debate. I like to look at the averages and previous data to make an assessment. His rookie year doesn’t outweigh all the bad play he has had from the last 2 seasons. Also, I don’t argue that he is definitely shell shocked from the O-Line & play calling(Same thing happened to David Carr) But unfortunately all of that leads me and for a lot of people to view this as a glass half empty scenario and we not getting rookie CJ back ever again and in fact I personally view it as not only is the glass half empty, but it’s cracked and starting to leak. The reasons could be 90% Nick Caserio and I wouldn’t mind him getting fired either. But no matter whose fault it is or how we got here. The results are the results and I think for CJ’s own career we need to part ways. Especially when you add in the fact he is going to be demanding a big contract soon. Sometimes couples can have a big enough disagreement or issue that it’s best for them to part ways. They both move on and sometimes find a better situation. This playoff run is a “breakup / it will never be the same “ situation. And if we don’t breakup then we are going to forcefully get married and then it will be worse. Doesn’t matter who’s more at fault or not. I don’t care. I don’t want to see him play for the Texans anymore.
No he’s not the biggest issue overall but he was by far the biggest issue yesterday. We need more explosive running backs and TEs. I stand by this. I’ll be screaming about running backs till I’m 90 ****ing years old or Caserio is fired. Not sure which will come first. Mixon is a good back, even then I thought it was criminal that we weren’t addressing depth aggressively considering he’s an aging back and I was skeptical about him to begin with. Then this year it bit us. I just don’t understand why Caserio DGAF about the running back room. He’s proven over and over and over again that he doesn’t. It’s ridiculous. The TE depth is atrocious. And yes, improve the offensive line. At the very least the depth on the o line needs a serious overhaul. All that said and this team still could have gotten to a Super Bowl this year if the ****ing QB understood that his role was to simply not ruin the teams chances. Take a sack. Throw it away. Punt. All of those things would have almost certainly led to a win yesterday.
Ersery had a HORRIBLE game. The only above-average player on offense yesterday, according to PFF grades, was Ed Ingram.
Amen. CJ needs a new QB coach and a sports psychologist. We need an infusion of OL talent plus more offensive weapons.
It was just an impossible situation. I was frankly more surprised the defense gave up THREE touchdowns to that pats offense. If you told me before the game the defense would give up three long td drives i would have laughed in your face for an hour.
A good running back doesn't band-aid over a bad offensive line. You basically get what we had last year with Mixon: a back turning chicken **** into something fairly close to chicken ****. I will say: they DESPERATELY missed Mixon in the RZ this year. I don't disagree with a single word you posted. If we're assigning blame, Stroud gets the vast majority of it. But we can't, IMO, scream that he should take a sack or throw the ball into the stands and just ignore that our porous OL - which Caserio thought he could fix shopping in the bargain bin - put Stroud in position to either take a sack or throw it away. I have zero interest in revisiting the game - but it sure felt like many of the mistakes were in a muddy, collapsing pocket.
Gotta draft and sign elite players. This core defense is around 1 more year. Some big names will leave for more money.
Two were long-ish (66 and 71 yards). But they all required luck and/or near perfection: Bullock missed knocking down the 4th-and-1 TD by literally inches; Diggs' TD had, like a less than 30% completion chance - I'm not sure how he held onto that football; and Boutte's catch is one of the best this season; just an incredible play. The two biggest plays of the game: the Texans not recovering the strip-sack - if Hunter falls on it, instead of thinking scoop-and-score... we would've had the ball inside NE's 10 with a chance to go up, 10-7. Just a HUGE unfortunate swing there. And then, of course, the awful pick-6. That felt like the Texans losing the fight to hold the dam. Just a backbreaking play.
Luck (and if you consider officiating part of that) is always a huge part of football. Unfortunately the pats hogged all of it.
Yep. They were eminently beatable. We were just not up to that task, unfortunately. It's going to sting for a long time letting this postseason get away from them.
Texans haven't had a "great" TE since Owen Daniels. It's all receiving TE or blocking TE, but not both. We can't whiff on anymore IOL draft picks anymore For the love of all that is mighty, draft a RB in the 2nd/3rd round (no more "we can turn this guy into Arian Foster" charity cases at RB anymore). WR room could use a shakeup outside of Nico/Higgins/Noel, but we don't have a lot of cap space. And our cap situation: gonna have to do work to open up some space so we can upgrade some of the surrounding parts on the offense. We also have some important decisions to make on defense outside the Will Anderson extension. Not a fan of dumping Caley after Year 1. I get it, but unless you get another West Coast guy, it's gonna be another new offensive system to install. And a lot of us are too impatient to go through anymore growing pains.
I hope Caserio's offseason doesn't get buried under the CJ discourse: they had GLARING needs across the offense, and, after mostly sitting out free agency, used the 79th overall pick on a *second* WR who, yesterday, was on the field for six plays and had 35 total targets all year.
Good QBs consistently work out of a collapsing/muddy pocket. Even average QBs can make it work at times, and at the very least it doesn’t always lead to catastrophic results. I know you don’t want to revisit the game but no, 2 of those interceptions occurred with basically zero pressure. One on a rollout that he just completely threw a terrible ball to the defender. Another on a slot fade type play where he overthrew the receiver by 10 yards. The pick 6, take a ****ing sack or dump it at the TE that fell down. The other one should have been caught, it was a high throw, but fine, I’ll give him that one. The only turnover that occurred because the line got destroyed was the pick 6, and that could have still easily been prevented.
Perhaps Caserio will find a different QB but, if he wants to keep Stroud, then he probably needs a sport psychologist and a new QB coach.
