He had some great plays. I think there were a few uncharacteristic plays that he was lucky weren’t bad plays. People remember the things that stand out from the norm. Overall it was par for the course with CJ.
Honestly. If you go back through all his throws. He played extremely well. It was very Brady Like. Not flashy, but constantly finding completions to move the chains or get in more reasonable situations. I think a lot of the "lack" of flashiness that we saw compared to last years Bengals/Bucs/Browns/etc games was due to the Colts playing extremely light in the box. When he needed to be Patrick Mahomes like, he was on 3rd and long situations. The clutch gene was in effect really all game. 9/9 on 3rd/4th down. Personally, I don't think CJ made a bad decision this game. Even the out of bounds throw away was him getting hit while trying to get the ball out of harms way over throwing it in coverage. It just didn't have enough juice to get out of bounds completely. It did get out of bounds though. His post to Tank. I would really be interested in hearing what really happened there. Was it CJ underthrowing it, because the trajectory he threw it with was lower. Was he expecting Dell to flatten out his post which ended up being more vertical? A few former NFL Qb's have already mentioned that it looked like Tank maybe didn't run the best route there. The other was the throw to Schultz which wasn't a bad decision. The defender used Dalton like a sling shot to get in position, had he not done that it is probably a completion for a first down due to ball location. I gave CJ an A, because ultimately what else are you supposed to do? He didn't force passes in to double coverage. He made great decisions and the Texans offense scored 29 points(should have been 32 if not for the refs failing to explain the situation correctly at the end of the first half).
If the Texans had last years running game then we would have seen bigger stats from CJ due to having to pass more.
I just can't wait for the big chunk plays that are going to start coming off play action when Nico and Tank are running free by a corner. There will be a lot of big plays this year as teams decide they can't afford to give up 5 yards a carry rushing. The Texans should have scored 32 points this game at minimum. That was just methodical football too.
CJ had opportunities to have higher yardage and TD. The underthrown ball to Tank near the end zone and the dropped pass near the sideline (was that Nico?).
Everything you said will make him a fine tight end. He doesn't need to throw 70% with his legs, but needs to do at least 60% and avoid picks. I'm skeptical that the nfl is going to teach him accuracy.
I would assume that most "NFL" guys would deem that performance largely exceptional. He was never selfish trying to do too much, and kept the offense in positive situations. Constantly on time, and played hero ball when he had to. Texans will win 12+ games this year if that version of CJ Stroud shows up. Then it will be on the defense to determine whether they are super bowl contenders or not.
Kurt Benkert (The Dime Lab on YT) said in his opinion, it was actually a good throw by CJ because the idea on that route is to let the receiver shield the DB with his back shoulder while going up and getting the ball. He actually thinks the Texans may swap out Dell for another WR (naturally Nico comes to mind since he's elite at that particular skill) on that play the next time they want to run it since doing that isn't Tank's strong suit. I'm not entirely sure any of that is true, but just an interesting perspective from someone who played the position at a high level.
Zaire and Speed put their podcast out today and not a word about the Texans owning them. lol The comments section is hilarious. Oh and I think we broke his finger during the game.
