How Texans’ C.J. Stroud can get back on track after an uneven start to his second NFL season

FRISCO, Texas — What’s bothering 2023 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year C.J. Stroud?

The Houston Texans quarterback, who was the second overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, has taken a step back statistically in 2024 even though he definitely hasn’t lost any ability in the midst of the middle of his second season playing professional football. Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy, the leader of Houston’s “Monday Night Football” opponent in Week 11, sees Stroud’s “sophomore slump” as more of a respect that opposing defenses have for the 23-year-old passer. Stroud has thrown six interceptions this season, which is already one more than his total for the entirety of his 2023 season. As a result, the AFC South-leading Texans (6-4) are one of two teams with a winning record to have a negative point differential (-2) this season along with the 6-5 NFC South-leading Atlanta Falcons (-30). 

“It’s really the respect that people have for him,” McCarthy said on Wednesday. “I think just the way he came onto the scene, the first thing that jumped off to me was his arm talent, but really his ability to get the ball out in tight quarters. There’s throw after throw on college tape, and I thought it really translated very well to the pro game. You’re seeing him get hit, and he is still snapping it off and getting it out with a tremendous amount of velocity, holding it to the last possible second recognizing the pressure. To see a young rookie quarterback make those types of pressure throws, I was very, very impressed with the little I had seen last year, and you can see it carry over. They’re still putting up good numbers. I don’t look at it that way. He can make all the throws. Good athlete. Just really for a young quarterback, his composure in the pocket is very impressive.”

• * NFL ranks out of 32 qualified quarterbacks
• ** NFL ranks out of 36 qualified quarterbacks

McCarthy is right that Stroud’s composure in the pocket is indeed impressive, but that comes with the caveat of when his pocket isn’t collapsing. The Texans have surrendered 35 sacks this season, tied for the third-most in the NFL and ahead of only two struggling offenses: the Chicago Bears (41), a team who fired offensive coordinator Shane Waldron last week, and the Cleveland Browns (46), who have been marred by injury along their offensive line and inefficiency at the quarterback position. Houston is allowing quarterback pressure on 38.5% of their dropbacks, the sixth-highest rate in the NFL this season. 

To be fair, Stroud’s 3.10-second average time to throw is the ninth-longest in the NFL this season among 35 qualified quarterbacks. That could be a factor, and it could be a reason why he is throwing under pressure on 39.4% of his dropbacks, which is the sixth-highest rate among 35 qualified quarterbacks in 2024. As a rookie last season, he threw under pressure on 35% of his dropbacks, which ranked as the 15th-lowest out of 32 qualified quarterbacks. The Texans offensive front allowed quarterback pressure on 35.3% of dropbacks in 2023, the 14th-lowest during Stroud’s rookie year. 

Any quarterback’s overall production will typically take a hit when pressured, and Stroud is no different. His overall career passer rating is 96.2, but when he is pressured, it plunges to 78.7. 

So what’s the problem and how can it be fixed? 

One could argue that Stroud missing his favorite target in wide receiver Nico Collins for the past five games is a reason for the step back in production. 

“It helps in terms of even just numbers. Football, it’s a simple game: it comes down to numbers. We’ve got a guy on the outside that’s going to take two right? I think it evens up your numbers in terms of pass protection and in the run game,” CBS Sports NFL analyst Matt Ryan said Monday when asked about the impact of Collins’ return Monday night. “I do think it helps in terms of favorable looks to run the football when you have a vertical threat like Nico Collins back out there. I think that’s helpful for them. Getting the ball out of the hands quickly, yards after catch, all of those things are a strength of Nico’s, but they [the offensive line] still have to do their job.” 

Another reason could be that there is some merit to Stroud suffering from a sophomore slump, but not necessarily in a traditional sense in that his offensive line in pass protection has taken a step back. 

Texans center Juice Scruggs makes the offensive line calls and not Stroud, according to ESPN. The 2023 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year didn’t have much involvement as a rookie in the offensive line’s protection calls, but it has increased in his second season. Some of the struggles Stroud is having this season could be somewhat attributed to the growing pains of adjusting to having more of a role in helping set his offensive line’s protection calls pre-snap. 

“When the quarterbacks get with us to go over protections, [Stroud] is more equipped,” Houston right guard Shaq Mason told ESPN back in September. “He knows the whole package now. It’s not like, ‘Where y’all gonna be?'”

Stroud may have the last final check pre-snap, he may not. For as great as Stroud is, he and offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik’s scheme may need to mature to a place where the quarterback is the one in charge of protection and to where the scheme also provides a larger variety of counters for what defenses are throwing at them at the line of scrimmage. McCarthy doesn’t see that as a significant issue, though.

“They really work hand in hand. One guy starts it and one guy can finish it,” McCarthy said when asked about a quarterback’s importance in leading the protection calls at the line of scrimmage. “Their protection system is something that I coached in at one time, so you do have an understanding of it. There’s good ways to do both if the quarterback handles it or the center handles it. At the end of the day, the quarterback has the best seat in the house. So for him to do the final adjustment is I think the norm, but yeah the more the center can take off any quarterback’s plate, (the better).”

Ryan, who won the 2016 NFL MVP with Kyle Shanahan as his Falcons offensive coordinator and running a similar system to Stroud, concurred with McCarthy that it doesn’t matter who starts or ends the protection calls and that the quarterback has the “trump card” in terms of input. 

“I think C.J., having done some of their games last year, having sat down with him in meetings before, he’s sharp. Super sharp,” Ryan said. “So when I look at them it comes down to [the offensive line’s] got to do a good job in their one on ones. Guys got to win in their blocking matchups, and I think that’s to me the area in protection where I’ve seen them struggle the most.”

Perhaps the fix could be as simple as re-orienting their offense around Pro Bowl running back Joe Mixon and the ground game despite having Stroud and weapons like Collins and Tank Dell on the perimeter. Mixon is averaging career-highs in rushing yards per game (93.6) and carries per games (21.6), and his 93.6 rushing yards per game ranks as the third-most in the entire NFL behind only Saquon Barkley’s 113.7 and Derrick Henry’s 107.7 among 29 players with at least 100 carries this season. To put it simply, they could use more cowbell from the bell cow back in Mixon in order to keep up with the AFC’s other contenders like the Kansas City Chiefs (9-1), Buffalo Bills (9-2), Pittsburgh Steelers (8-2), Los Angeles Chargers (7-3) and Baltimore Ravens (7-4). Houston averages 28.4 rushes a game, which is the 13th-most in the NFL, a number it could increase into the 30s, which would put it among the league’s top-five in that metric. 

“We hear this all the time, but really to me, Houston is one of the best examples of it: (They have success) when they’re running the football early, and they’re getting into their play-action passes because they’re built with that outside zone scheme, which a lot of times has a touch smaller, a touch more athletic offensive linemen that are really good in those stretch combination blocks in the run game. But when you get isolated in straight one-on-one dropback protection, that might not be their strengths,” Ryan said. 

“This football team is going to go as far as the run game is going to take them. That’s not a slight on any of the guys in the pass game or C.J.; I just think the way that they’re built and playing to C.J.’s strengths, he’s such a great passer in the intermediate part of the field off play action. … Running the football has to be at the forefront of what they do.”