C.J. Stroud threw a pair of critical interceptions in the second half of the Texans' loss to the Lions on Sunday night. The Drive's Clint Stoerner and Ron Hughley grade his performance here.
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00:00CJ Stroud's great. What was CJ Stroud's grade? You can text in your thoughts on what his grade
00:06is. I'm seeing D minus, D minus. Somebody said F minus, C minus. Someone said, Champ Slice said he
00:13gets an A for the first half and an F for the second half, so it equals out to a C. CJ Stroud,
00:2019 for 33, 232 yards, one touchdown, two interceptions. In the second half in particular,
00:30with a 23-7 lead, he was four of 12, 68 yards and two interceptions, no touchdowns
00:37in the second half. How would you grade CJ Stroud's performance yesterday? I'll go with a D.
00:45I'll go with a D, and that's only because the first half was so well executed. It was a thing
00:54of beauty there. But look, when you're a quarterback and you got a 23-7 lead, you got the ball coming
01:01out at halftime, really every time you touch the ball in the second half, any points is
01:08actually more difficult for the opponent to come back. And you get shut out, that's a big-time
01:17problem. You look at the interception coming out on the first play of the second half,
01:25it's a hard corner, we're throwing a speed cut out route, that's just on the quarterback 10
01:30out of 10 times. Yeah, he wasn't hiding. He was sitting right there. Yeah, and you got to know,
01:37you've got to be aware, at this point, you've eaten them up with quick game in the second half.
01:44Now, there's a strong message from Gerard Johnson or Bobby Slowik, one of the two,
01:48that, hey man, look, when we come out in the second half, their adjustment's probably going to be,
01:56they're going to give us less cushion. They're going to squeeze down, they're going to tighten
01:59up this coverage pre-snap, they're going to force you to throw the ball over the top. So,
02:03it's still quick throws, but we're going to work some of that high-low, the corners outside that
02:07are now going to be a little bit tighter. So, be aware that these corners, and backers and
02:11safeties and everything, they're probably going to jump some of the routes. You'd be shocked if
02:15that conversation was not had at the half. Boy, if it wasn't had, it's criminal. I got to believe
02:20that that was had, yes. So, the coming out interception is bad, that's double negative.
02:26That's not just an interception at midfield, that's double negative. That's trying to give
02:30away a lead. That's how you have a huge momentum swing, is in that part of the field, you turn it
02:35over, right? And then you fast forward to the tank dale, wide open, in the end zone. You've got
02:43points, you've got three points, and you throw an interception when, I mean, the receiver's butt
02:52naked, wide open, for three plus seconds for a touchdown. That's on nobody but C.J. Stroud.
02:58And, you know, so those two major, major mistakes, along with the expectations of,
03:08you know, we're not grading C.J. Stroud on a Davis Mills scale here. You're judging,
03:15you know, I'm judging C.J., grading C.J. Stroud on a top five quarterback in the NFL
03:22scale, and I think it was a rough day. So, I'll go with a D, Ron.
03:27Go with a D. Some others coming in. Stroud was solid, B minus to B plus in the first half.
03:34He was ass in the second half. Yeah, Clint, I'm in the,
03:42I'm in the D range, and not just D for the grade, but that was very, very disappointing
03:49from him yesterday. That performance was very disappointing. Now, listen, I'm not gonna say
03:54that it was Will Levis-like, that he sucked all the way through the first half. I thought he played
04:02pretty well, right? I think he, I think, you know, the big touchdown at the end of the half
04:06that he gets and he fits into Mechie, I thought obviously was a great throw. There were a couple
04:12of early ones on third downs and longs where it's like, all right, hey, picked it up, made a big
04:17play, and made a good decision. Didn't try to be a hero and let people run to get third downs.
04:24I think he put them in and helped put them in a defense to win this game and be up 23,
04:3823 to seven at the half. And Clint, this may be harsh to some, but
04:43I mean, it is hard for me not to point at a bigger reason of why they lost the game
04:49than CJ Stroup. Expectations or not, if they don't turn the ball over,
04:56if they don't, if he does not turn the ball over, they don't win the game, especially,
05:01or they don't lose the game, especially the second. The second one, as you just talked about,
05:06just running wide open for long stretches, right? And there wasn't real pressure,
05:14right, to get him. There was a defensive end running towards him, but he could set his feet,
05:19he could do all this and everything. He waited so long that made the defensive lineman have a
05:24better shot to distract him on the throw. That makes it 30 to 13. Not only did they not make
05:32it 30 to 13, not only did they not have a chance to make it 26 to 13 by kicking a field goal,
05:41because they were in field goal range, it was a pick and just absolutely changed the game.
05:48Yes, there were other factors of why this team lost, but coming out, Clint, I know I said it
05:56up there. The only way the Texans really going to lose this game is they start making mistakes to
06:00help them. If they start making mistakes to help them, and this was not like any of these tip ones
06:06that maybe Jarrett Golf City got away with or a Hail Mary one that's an interesting
06:12of what I heard Sean saying last night, sloppy turnovers. And I think the part when I say is
06:18disappointing as well, and Clint, I think there were opportunities, Clint, the whole time,
06:24Clint, Tyler, I'm sitting here thinking, all right, here we go. It's 23 to 20. It's 20,
06:32like they're down through, all right, it's 23, 23. Like you need your big guy, your dude to
06:38make a play. You need your dude to pick everybody up. You need your dude to fix this. You need your
06:44dude to come up with a big play. Got the ball, man. We're right here. We've crossed midfield,
06:51make a play. And he just could not do it, Clint. Not at any moment. And we have, we have talked
07:01about the company that we think that he may be in this year. Jarrett Golf? No, not even in the
07:07same company. You've talked about he's better than Josh Allen. You've talked about he's better
07:12than Lamar. You've talked about he may be up there with Mahomes. We've heard that conversation.
07:18Talked about all the players. He could not make a play, Clint. And he had the ball multiple times
07:25where you say, all we need is can you tackle on a field goal? And then they're driving,
07:30they're driving and he could not make a play. Not all of it was on him.
07:35There was some protection issues. Yes. But there were some also some opportunities too.
07:42Like, I mean, there were, there were, I just, that part was disappointing and really surprising
07:48that there there's probably about the lions are coming and just turn it, turn it,
07:56turn it hell on one of them. Bobby said, man, I don't know if I feel comfortable. I gotta,
08:01I gotta put it in, in Joe's hands for five straight carries because you just throw two picks
08:07like that, like that, that part was, and I, and again, not saying that he's done or that he stinks
08:14or anything like that. Still believe in CJ Stroud, but that part was, was really,
08:21was really tough to watch, to see that he just could not make the play or plays to get them
08:28there that we've seen him be able to do. Well, you just, we've seen the greats do it time and
08:32time and time again with their starters, without their starters, with great play callers, without
08:37great play callers with, with, you know, whatever the fact of the matter is, is the offense was
08:45great in the first half. They struggled in the second half. You still got to the fourth quarter
08:49with a one score lead. It was a one score ball game. You got to the fourth quarter,
08:53literally late in the fourth quarter with the opportunity to, to give your team a lead and make
09:00it put some, some serious pressure on a quarterback that it just wasn't his day in Jared golf.
09:06And, and you failed miserably multiple times, as you said, like it just, it was a, it was an
09:12opportunity for CJ Stroud to, to re emerge, if you will, as one of the better quarterbacks in
09:21the league and show why, and it didn't happen. Yeah. And there's no, I mean, that's just the
09:25truth of the matter. I don't, there's no, we don't need to, well, you didn't have this guy.
09:28I didn't have that guy. That's fine. Whatever. Opportunities there. It didn't get, it didn't
09:33get taken advantage of. And here we sit at six and four, having lost three of the last four games.
09:38And, um, you know, at a point where you got to stop, you got to stop the skid here. You got to
09:45stop the bleeding, man. So I'm going to text in and I'm sure we got a little bit of time
09:50in a week to look at and tomorrow tape drop Tuesday. I'm sure we'll get some more, but
09:56from your, people are texting in wondering from you, Clint, from, from, from your view,
10:02what, what did you see was the difference in CJ from half one to have to, what did you see?
10:08I just looked up there. They just put up the stats, Tyler. He had a QBR of one in the second
10:13half 30. I think that the biggest, the biggest difference is he made some terrible decisions
10:19that were turnovers. I mean, that's, I mean, you can talk about Bobby Sloak all you want, but,
10:23but I mean, the, the one thing that you couldn't do in the third quarter to let the lines back in
10:27this thing in the fourth quarter to make it a game was to turn the football over yourself,
10:31especially given the fact that you, that he comes out and turns it over. And so, um,
10:36the two piss poor decisions were, were unacceptable for any quarterback, but damn sure,
10:41CJ Stroud, um, the, in the second half, there's no doubt about it. The Detroit lines,
10:49they tightened down their coverage and we're, we're trying to, trying to force them to throw
10:54the football over the top. No one that in order to do that, it's going to take a little bit longer.
10:57So they had to try to protect and they can't protect, um, which they showed that as well.
11:01I don't know how many, how many, like, let's say mid range game or progression passes that
11:06were called that weren't quicks or screens, but I I'm willing to bet 30 to 4% of them. You,
11:13you were pressured on anyway. So it was, it was there. It was just being masked by the,
11:16by the play caller that the, all the pressure that, that we typically seen. So, um, yeah,
11:23you know, that happened. And, and, and then, you know, you look at, at the inability of Hutchinson
11:28to win in, in critical situations. Um, you know, that, that, that was a, not being critical of,
11:35of Hutch, but it's just a reality of it. So I think there's something to be said about the
11:38guys that were missing. Um, I thought that was interesting on two third downs. Uh,
11:46he was, he was in that direction in Hutchinson's direction. Pretty, pretty quick. And I just
11:53watched that last one. I think he was working, uh, uh, Schultz and Schultz slipped on like a
12:00little pivot route. So he just came back to, cause if he would have started out on, on Hutch,
12:05he would have hit him at the numbers and he was open, but he started out to the right side and
12:09came back across the field to Hutch. And by that time, the DB had already recovered and was all
12:13over his back. He'd already closed the ground between, you know, he was so close to the middle
12:18linebacker with the middle linebacker obviously came into play. Whereas if he would have started
12:22there, Hutch would have actually been open, but he started to the right side. And it looks like
12:26you just see it. Like if you watch it, they keep showing the highlight of that last play.
12:29If you look at it on the bottom right-hand of the screen, it looks like Dalton Schultz slips
12:33when he's trying to run like a little pivot route. And so that's why he came off. So if that is the
12:37case, add one more, like, like, and I don't know yet we'll see, but add one more of your highly
12:43paid veterans that it's expected to be a game changer. Add the fact that he slips in a critical
12:48moment, which is in football, but it's still a critical moment. It's still, it's still the
12:54inability to execute. And, and so add that to the list of veteran guys that didn't impact players
13:01that didn't, that impact the game positively. Yeah. There was that last third down on Hutch
13:05where you didn't seem like it was his first read. But I remember another third down before they're
13:09a little deeper in, I think we were like, Oh, it's man across. And he went Hutch over,
13:14over branch. I just, I just wondered why it was interesting that,
13:19that tank may not have been the first place his mind thought to go on some of those.
13:24Yeah. No, I look, I agree. I agree wholeheartedly on that. I mean, like to me, to me of all,
13:30of all, well, I've always said this, right? Like, like it's, even if you're working with
13:33young quarterbacks, right. And, and you know, when you, when you come to the line of scrimmage, CJ,
13:38when you come to the line of scrimmage, so again, at halftime, right, Ron, we talked about it a while
13:41ago. Like there, there, if, if, if there wasn't a conversation, a very stern matter of fact, CJ,
13:47look me in the eyes right now, I'm telling you what they're going to do. We just lit their ass
13:51up with the quick game. They're going to do everything they can to take that away from us.
13:55So be aware of that being a problem. And when we do get man to man, when we get cover one with a
14:02free safety or cover zero, and we know they're bringing pressure, they're gonna try to man us up.
14:06Here's what we got to do. We've got to find tank Dale. He's our man beater, right? Or whoever you
14:12don't Schultz, whoever you want to, who you want to designate as that man beater. It's damn sure
14:16not Hutch, right? So that, that should have been very clear that we're going to, we're going to
14:21call quicks and we're going to go to tank Dale. Cause he's wanting to create the separation.
14:26And here's how we're going to do it. It's very obvious, easy conversation. And if it's not tank
14:30Dale, then it's where you're using two guys, using a concept to win instead of your best
14:36player to win. It's got to be one of those two. And you can't tell me that Hutch on a lazy ass,
14:42a bang post over the middle is your best, your best route. Like you said, against their best DB,
14:48who's who ought to be damn all pro player that that can't be your best, your best option. So
14:53um, again, there's, and I don't know if that's lack of Bobby and, and, and, uh, Gerard coaching
14:59him or if that's a, if that's CJ doing what, you know, giving CJ all the freedom to do whatever
15:04the hell CJ wants to do. And he picks to do that. Um, that's got to change.