[2023 NFL Draft/1-2] C.J. Stroud, QB, Ohio State

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The Big Thing: What's wrong with C.J. Stroud this season?

The Texans were supposed to take over the NFL this season. That's what last season told us. They finished on a 7-3 run to win the AFC South and get into the playoffs. Then they ran over the Browns in their home playoff game. Stroud became the youngest quarterback to ever win a postseason game, and in that victory, the then-rookie promised us that every year would get better and better and better. It felt like Stroud would make at least the AFC Championship Game in Year 2 then maybe the Super Bowl then win the next 10 championships consecutively.

Stroud was an NFL-ready rookie who could throw punches with the best in the AFC, the next in line to challenge Patrick Mahomes and start setting records. When the Texans started loading up on talent this past offseason -- trading for Stefon Diggs, signing Joe Mixon and Danielle Hunter -- the hype train got predictably and understandably out of control.

The 7-5 Texans are far from a disappointment, and Stroud is far from bad. But they're 2-4 over their past six games after Sunday's embarrassing 32-27 home loss to the Titans, and Stroud is 25th in QBR at 51.3. Stroud threw two picks and ended the Tennessee game by taking a sack/going out of bounds for a safety. It feels like the team that was supposed to make the leap has instead taken a few stumbling steps backward.

Despite the recent rocky weeks, I'm nowhere near the panic button on Stroud. He has completed 63.1% of his throws for 2,875 yards and 14 touchdowns with nine picks. There are three key reasons that last season's sensation feels like this season's disappointment, and most of them are outside of Stroud's control. There's plenty he can do better as a young passer, and he will. But when I watch the Texans' offense, this is what I see:

A change in opponents' defensive approach

In 2023, Stroud was at the helm of a Texans offense run by first-time coordinator Bobby Slowik. We didn't know what was going to happen, and the rest of the league didn't, either. The Texans ran a lot of the Shanahan-tree hits. They got under center, ran the football a bunch and looked for deep play-action shots behind the run. As such, Stroud saw a lot of Cover 3 -- on 34.8% of his dropbacks, to be exact. The Shanahan offense wants you in Cover 3; it was built to beat that defense. Once Stroud emerged as an aggressive and accurate middle-of-the-field passer, the Texans started to shred opponents with all of the classics we know from the 49ers' offense, including deep crossing patterns and in-breaking routes behind bamboozled linebackers.

In 2024, defenses said no more. They are playing Cover 3 on 26.6% of Stroud's dropbacks, robbing him of the single-high looks he ripped up last season. In their place, opposing defenses have dialed up the two-high; they're playing Cover 2 on twice as many dropbacks this season (20% of the time) as they did last season. Similarly, Stroud saw base defense on 27.9% of his dropbacks in 2023, and now he sees it on only 21.6% of them.

This is not a structural response to a change in the Texans' passing attack. Houston is running play-action at the same rate as it did last season and dropping back from the shotgun just about as much as it did a season ago. The Texans, with the addition of Mixon in the backfield, are even better running the football than they were last season, but that probably has something to do with the lighter box counts, as well.

Last season, defenses were largely playing Stroud like a rookie quarterback. This season, they're playing him more like an elite quarterback -- and Stroud is still learning how to deal with that. The big plays are still there despite the two-high deployment (17.5% of his passes were explosive in 2023, and 15.8% are this season), but the down-to-down success rate has taken a hit, dropping from 47.6% to 42.5%. That's the difference between 10th last season and 26th today.

Does this mean that Stroud's 2023 season was a mirage? Was he a schemed-up QB with puffed-up numbers? Absolutely not. The dude shredded then, and he shreds now. Stroud still has all the arm talent, the ability to throw on move, the tight-window accuracy and the downfield ball placement that he had in 2023. To illustrate: His touchdown throw to Nico Collins against the end line between three defenders was a sight to see.



It's just harder than it was last season because Stroud is now getting star treatment. This is something he'll have to grow through, just as Mahomes, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow all did when defenses started catering to their particular games. And Stroud will be all the better for it once he does.

Bad interceptions (and bad interception luck)

Stroud has thrown some gnarly interceptions this season. The one in the end zone against the Lions that galvanized the Detroit comeback was rough, and he sailed a bad one against the Cowboys early in that game, as well. His second pick against the Titans was another rough one; it seemed like he completely disregarded the underneath defender and got punished accordingly.



If it appears like these interceptions have come out of nowhere, well, they have and they haven't. Stroud threw only five interceptions last season. His interception rate of 1.0% was one of the best in the game and absurdly low for a rookie passer who started the entire season. This season, he has thrown nine for an INT rate of 2.3%.

Nobody likes when the interception rate doubles, but it's just about average for the league this season, so it's not like Stroud is handing the ball away at an egregious clip. Nor is Stroud putting the ball in harm's way at an egregious clip. His turnover-worthy play rate is 2.8%, which is exactly what it was last season. It's easy to forget in all the rookie hype but he got away with a lot of window-testing last season. This season, he's just regressing back to the mean.

Take as an example his first interception against the Titans. On this play, Stroud and wide receiver John Metchie III have a disagreement on where Metchie's route should break. Stroud tries to pull him downfield, whereas Metchie stays rooted to the spot.



This is a mundane miscommunication; it does not mean Stroud is hitting some sort of enormous sophomore wall that he will never overcome. This sort of play happens all the time but usually falls incomplete. The Texans caught a bad roll of the dice, and it ended in a pick.

I'm not going to get too worked up over interception rate, especially when it's mostly just a meteoric 2023 season crashing back down to earth. Stroud is an aggressive pocket passer who gives his receivers chances to make big plays. Many of his best throws wouldn't be attempted by a quarterback fearful of throwing a pick. You have to die by the sword every so often when you live by it.

 

Pass protection that can't hold up

It's no secret that the Texans are suffering in pass protection this season. Stroud has a pressure rate of 41%, which is the fourth highest in the NFL. Of the five quarterbacks who have been pressured on at least 40% of their dropbacks (Stroud, Anthony Richardson, Will Levis, Jacoby Brissett and Deshaun Watson), Stroud has by far the best overall expected points added (EPA) per dropback and success rate. He is the only guy who's even kind of making it work.

A high pressure rate can often tell you as much about a quarterback as it does an offensive line, though. Quarterbacks who hold onto the ball for too long and don't know how to find their checkdowns invite pressure. But Stroud's time to pressure is 2.54 seconds, the sixth-fastest number in the league. Stroud has been pressured in under 2.5 seconds 96 times this season, which is the most in the NFL and 18 more quick pressures than he saw last season (on about 90 fewer dropbacks).

So, it's not just that the Texans' offensive line is losing a lot. It's that the O-line is losing a lot and losing fast. Poor line play is the primary culprit. Quick pressure typically comes from the interior, and guard performance has been a big issue for Houston all season. Left guard Kenyon Green was a target of defensive coordinators before he was lost for the season due to a shoulder injury, and 31-year-old right guard Shaq Mason is showing his age.

But some of the issues are structural too. Slowik is a chip off the old Shanahan block, and the Shanahan offense is notorious for having a small menu of protection rules and an exploitable lack of checks and adjustments at the line of scrimmage. Here's a nice example. The Titans present a five-man surface on this third-and-9 play. The player over the right guard is Kenneth Murray Jr., who is technically an off-ball linebacker. But because he has stepped right up to the line of scrimmage, you'd like to be able to set this protection with the five offensive linemen each taking the down defensive player opposite them.



Instead, because the Texans don't change the protection call at the line of scrimmage and stay in their called slide protection, the running back is left to step up onto Murray. Sometimes, backs have to take a linebacker one-on-one in pass protection, so this isn't that wild. But because Murray is already up at the line of scrimmage, he already has broken the shape of the pocket before the back can get to him. Stroud is immediately forced to reset in the pocket, which throws off the timing and accuracy of the throw.

This is the sort of thing Houston could clean up schematically by giving either center Jarrett Patterson (who is in for Juice Scruggs, who has moved to left guard) or Stroud more control at the line of scrimmage. But the team can't just do that overnight; it has to be added to the playbook, installed in camp and practiced rep after rep after rep after rep. You can be certain that a revamped approach to protection (both via personnel and schematically) will be a focus of the Texans' 2025 offseason. But the issues in 2024 won't disappear anytime soon.