The Ringer NFL Show - The Texans Got It Right With C.J. Stroud | The Play Sheet [VIDEO]

Episode Date: September 27, 2023

The Ringer’s Ben Solak breaks down how the Houston Texans may have found their franchise quarterback with rookie C.J. Stroud. He explains why Stroud’s film from Ohio State is translating to the Texans offense and how Stroud is elevating wide receivers Nico Collins, Tank Dell, and Robert Woods. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Howdy? I'm Ben Solac and this is the play sheet. This is a video pod we're doing now. Wow. On Wednesdays, every Wednesday on the feed where I break down some film on something in the NFL, it's really cool. Here's our week three episode. The opening script, Texans got a good one in C.J. Stroud. The 2023 quarterback class was super hotly contested. You had Florida's Anthony Richardson, Anthony Richardson, Alabama's Bryce Young, Ohio State, C.J. Stroud, and Kentucky's Will Levis. Now, three of those guys, Richardson, Young, and Stroud went with top five picks. And we've seen all three of them play. Young has looked, shaky on a really bad Panthers team, and he's banged up. Ridgesons looked pretty good, but he's also banged up. Unquestionably, the best start of the three belongs to CJ Stroud with the Texas. Now, best start of all rookie quarterbacks isn't that high of a mark, but Stroud's been objectively good. He has over 900 passing yards in his first three career starts, which is third all-time among quarterbacks through their first three games.

He's thrown four touchdowns and critically no interceptions. He's 16th in success rate. He's 16th in expected points out of production. dropback, which neither of those are crazy numbers, but this is a rookie quarterback on the Texans. Those are pretty good relative to expectation. And now, after a 37 to 17 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars, division rival, Strout has something even more important, his first career win. So the numbers on Stroud are encouraging. Great, awesome. What I care about is the film. I want to see if what you did in college translates to the pros, because those first few games are a moment for a coaching staff

on a front office to look at a player and say, okay, when we drafted you with the second overall pick, we thought you'd succeed for X, Y, and Z reasons. This is what we thought you'd be in the league. And those first few games are the proving ground of that. They're the litmus test. Are you going to win the way we thought you would win? And for Stroud, the answer is emphatically. Yes. So what is Stroud doing well? And how did he translate it? From Ohio State to Houston, let's go to play action. So last season on the play sheet, we did scouting reports for all the quarterback prospects. And my favorite one to do with Stroud and the commenters figured that out, which is fine. But it was so fun because he's so aggressive and he has such ridiculous arm

talent. Here's what I said last year about Stroud's style of play. There's a chemical reaction that happens here. We have a quarterback with an extremely gifted arm and C.J. Stroud. And you have a receiver room that he's thrown to that includes first rounder, Chris Oliva, first rounder, Garrett Wilson, future first rounder, Jackson, for the Jigba and future future first rounder, maybe the best of the bunch, Marvin Harrison. Very good receiver room. When you get That plus the guy who's got a lot of harm talent, you get a very aggressive passer. Let's start with the good side of aggression. Stroud will drop back rhythm and throw, which is like three step and shoot into some

ridiculous windows with great anticipation over the middle of the field, a lot of bodies, a lot of geometry to deal with. These are NFL caliber, big boy throws. This is one of the plays we highlighted last year against Penn State bang eight post, right? We're going to get to about eight, ten yards of depth. then we're going to bang inside. And then there's just this slot defender.

Watch Stroud just stare at his soul. Play action fake. Then right here, just you're going to have this route go outside. And then Harrison's going to develop behind. You can take this any day of the week and feel perfectly justified as a quarterback. Stroud just steps in. Balls out right now. Balls out right now.

You can't see the receiver. He's between the receiver and the ball. Balls out. Excellent placement. Now here's last week against the. Jacks. This is Nico Collins. He's going to run just his glance post, right? So he just draw is going to throw from inside the pocket. The moment this guy releases the ball, like he's starting his throwing motion right here, right? You can see. He's separating the

hands, arms coming back. This is where Nico Collins is. This is where he's going to break. Right? When we when we won't run this slowly, frame by frame, watch. This is very dumb. This is this is so early if he's throwing this football. In fact, it's too early, right? I mean, Nico gets his head turned and the ball's low. And so Niko gets his head turned. And so Nico gets his hands to it a little bit late and it ends up being a drop. It should have been a catch. It's the main thing of his on Nico. But this anticipation, right?

The timing, right? Land on your back foot. No hitch. Just step into it and fire it. Like this is, this safety wants to close on this route and just has no shot. Like, this is keeping the window open. This is as good as anticipation is going to get for a rookie quarterback in the NFL.

Awesome. Here's anticipation on Inbreaker again, but I love this place that's under center, right? Something he didn't do a ton of at Ohio State, but important for a Shanham. offense, right? The OC for the Texans, Bobby Slovak is from San Francisco. He's with Kyle Shanahan. So we send fullback in motion. We snap it, play action fake, and now you have to flip your head around, flip your hips around, get those back cleats in the ground and fire, right? And so

it's same route, same idea, right? He's going to throw this in-breaking route, right, behind Patrick Queen in front of Roy Kwan Smith, right? You're just going to throw the window between the two linebackers, beautiful throw and everything. But the footwork is a, is a greater challenge when you're under center. You had to be able to do this in the Shanahan offense. defense. Easy, gorgeous, lovely. So that's like anticipation. It was very big on Stroud's film. And a lot of quarterbacks have it. And especially the Shanahan offense, you got to have it. But a lot of anticipation is trust, right? You know the timing of the offense. You know the receiver's precise. So you land on that back foot. You see a window between two defenders. And you know that if

you just put it there, that receiver is going to break and it's going to hit him in stride. And Stroud's deadly accurate. And that's great. But we've seen like a Jimmy Grappel do that. And we've seen a Jared Gopp do that. We were seeing Tua do that in Miami right now to like unbelievable, designated levels. It's a familiar idea. What Stroud brings that soups it up. He's like Jared Gough on Nitro, man, is the aggressiveness. This cat will shoot with some arm talent and it's sick to see. Here's another play from Penn State. This was, like, we did this play very early in the video last year. I love this throw. I'm extremely sick. They're going to run dagger, which is where you run a seam route, right, all the way down the field. And then behind it,

you run like a real deep dig, right? This breaks at like 20 yards. It's all. off screen right now. I can't even show you. So CJ Stroud, five-step drop, right? Deep drop in the pocket. It's going to start hitching up now. And this is where that dagger breaks is going to come, right? This seam route is going to keep running at the safety. Who's off-screen right now. Safety's there. And then they're going to break this dig in behind. Look at just all of the defensive bodies that you have to deal with. There's one more over here if you're thrown into this window. I mean, this is, this is congestion. And Stroud just grips it, rips it. That's a, That's a sick throw.

So you get to the NFL level and you're a little less aggressive, right? You kind of chill out. You throw with more checkdowns. You've got to get used to NFL speed. Wrong. You're C.J. Stroud, you're the man. Dagger again, right? This time, under center.

So we're going to seem and then Nico Collins running that big dig. Working to the middle of the field. Play action fake under center. So it's more challenging footwork too for our boy C.J. It's now the football. There's a fake. Land on the back foot. He's looking at this safety.

Want to make sure that this safety is going to run, right? You got eyes initially to the front side. but it's not actually the front side. This is such a cool freaking throw. Set? Here's Nico Collins. You have a problem right here. Problem's name is Ayer Franklin.

You can't. There's no, you either have to throw this ball over him or find a way to throw it in this window here between these two defenders. Watch Stroud. Watch Stroud pull Franklin a little bit with his eyes.

Look at Franklin. And then Stroud throws right behind him. If Franklin doesn't move here, this is a pick. It is a ball. he throw, man, and just raves it over the middle of the field. That's a good throw. Ends on view. Watch where his eyes take Zaire Franklin. Claction fake. Now watch him set. Where does it look like he's thrown? It looks like he's throwing here. Like, that's where the hallway is set. And so

Franklin is going to move that direction. He's going to get pulled. And then that throw comes in right behind him. So we have all the pieces of like a delightful pocket passer. He's aggressive. He has arm talent, anticipation. He trusts the offense. Like this is a this is a guy that's going to win from the pocket. But the question on Stroud was always what he does outside of the pocket. And while he's not a big scrambler, he doesn't tuck and run very much, he actually has a very good throw on the move. This is what we said about Stroud last season. Stroud is definitely like the least athletic of the top four quarterbacks and he does the least amount of work outside of the pocket and he's really accurate from the pocket and he's not as accurate

outside of the pocket. But with all of that said, he makes some really nice throws on the move. This is where Stroud really shows off just like his arm because his pocket mechanics are often so good, so just like looks really clean. When things aren't clean, when he's getting hit, falling into the sideline, and when he's trying to throw against his momentum, his arm solves a lot of problems for him. He'll still be accurate, 10, 15, 20 plus yards down the field, throwing on the move.

Not something you expect, given kind of the way he's talked about and the profile that he fits. So I want you to watch this play against Georgia, which was a huge play to Stroud's evaluation. It's going to be a play where he's under pressure, right? The Ohio State Office line loses. He recovers, makes a guy missing the pocket. And now on the move,

Finds a throw, finds an open receiver, touchdown. See that play. Remember that play, and now watch this. Fourth quarter against the Jaguars, Red Zone. Pressure. Work the pocket, two hands on the ball. Ball security king. On the move to his right.

And that should have been a touchdown. This is, like, he did it against Georgia, and then he did it against the Jags. He's not a scrambler, but he is good out of the pocket. He is good on the move, and that is hugely important to why he's going, going to be a good quarterback in the NFL. Watch this throw.

It's when he throws it. Okay. Right there he starts a throwing motion. Look at Schultz. Schultz is not yet facing the sideline, right? Stroud right now knows because of the leverage of the corner that Schultz is going to turn his body, turn his shoulders, and then work to this pylon. And so he throws this now on the move, snappy release, high velocity ball and hit Stroud on all 10 fingers, dude. I mean, on the correct shoulder, too, away from the corner.

The fact that Shult doesn't catch this drives me nuts. But this is what we're talking. Like the creativity is there. The out of structure, out of pocket playmaking is there. No, he's not going to tuck and run as often as Josh Allen. It's not going to break tackles. But this guy can make it happen on the move. It's so important to see these plays back to back like this because it's showing us

exactly how Stroud's eval, right? What he proved he could do at Ohio State is mapping onto the Houston offense and critically doing it without Marvin Harrison Jr., and Jack Smith and Jigbun, and Crystal Lave and Garrett Wilson. Instead, it's Tank Dell, and it's Robert Woods, and it's Nico Collins. A wide receiver group that's okay, but that Stroud is elevating. He's trusting Woods to be that veteran that gets open. He's hitting Nico on these digs in stride.

Let the big fast body go create yak. He's airing it out for Tank Dell down the field. He's doing this without the elite wide receiver talent with tons of offensive line injuries, right? Titus Howard's missed time. Jeremy Tunsel's missed time. Kenyon Green's mistime. Drew Scruggs. They have a guy.

His name is Drew Scruggs. He's missed time. I mean, with the past protection issues, Stroud is still succeeding in the pocket, creating outside of structure. This is doing it without the Ohio State cheat codes. So for as much as a shoutout goes to Stroud, who's working with a suboptimal receiver group and a banged up offensive line, so must a shoutout go to Bobby Sloick,

that OC from the Shanahan system, a first-time play caller, who is getting Stroud to his spots, who's running the offense that maximizes Stroud, that asks him to do similar things that the Ohio State offense did and is letting him trust it, just letting him grip and rip it, which Stroud does best. This is humming. right now in Houston.

They're one and two. They're not going to make other playoffs. They have a lot of personnel problems. But the proof of concept, man, that they got the guy they drafted for and they know how to build an offense around him. I mean, man, it's a slam dunk. So is this sustainable? Is he going to have an average of 300 passing yards every game?

No, they're going to continue to get pressured a lot. And the season's going to go on. He's going to make rookie mistakes. But you know right now that you have the building block in place, that you wanted to get a franchise quarterback with a second overall pick. and all signs right now. Point to yes. That's it for us here on the play sheet.

Thank you so much for watching. Thank you to the 2023 rookie quarterback class for being good. Thank you to CJ Stroud for being the best. Thank you for Richie Bozick, producer extraordinaire. Thank you, Corey McConnell. Producing Oversight extraordinaire. Thanks, everybody. Thank you all over the place.