Does Mills' Success Put More Pressure on Stroud?

KILT-AM / SportsRadio 610

Seth and Sean dive into CJ Stroud making a likely return vs the Colts this Sunday and if Davis Mills' success the past 3 games puts more pressure on Stroud.

Transcript

00:00C.J. Stroud, presumably back this week.

00:02If there was even a question of him coming back this week,

00:06I don't think he would have been on the sidelines for that game,

00:07if I had to guess.

00:08And I don't think he did a YMCA appearance.

00:11On Friday, that's right.

00:12High-fiving kids at great physical peril.

00:15I saw that.

00:15I saw your tweet that that's the seventh stage of the concussion protocol.

00:20You've got to be able to be around a bunch of preteens

00:23and not have symptoms afterwards.

00:25Yeah.

00:25Not have headaches.

00:27Okay.

00:27So maybe – and we haven't seen anything since that appearance,

00:31so maybe it is a question.

00:32Yeah, yeah.

00:33Good point.

00:34He started – balance issues, light sensitivity.

00:37Do you think he picks up right where he left off?

00:40I thought the San Francisco game in week eight,

00:44that was the game before he got hurt, I thought was –

00:46I thought you could make an argument that was the best game he's had as a Texan

00:50for a variety of reasons.

00:51I won't re-adjudicate that game.

00:53But then I thought early in the Denver game he was doing some good things too.

00:55He was 6-10, 79 yards.

00:57Other than at the one-yard line where they made him hand the ball off four times.

01:01Right.

01:02Then – or he ran a QB sneak on fourth down, but they got a false start.

01:06Yeah.

01:07Other than the goal-to-go situation, I thought he looked fine against Denver.

01:10Do you think he picks up right where he left off?

01:12I think he does.

01:13And if anything, you know, the last time he came back from a concussion his rookie year,

01:16he seemed to be seeing the game even better.

01:19And he talked about it.

01:20I remember at the time being able to watch on television

01:22and kind of see some things about maybe how he needs to do things differently.

01:26I think he picks up right where he left off.

01:28I think there's still – you know, the offense in general, you've got to try to separate,

01:35okay, was this Davis Mills operating the offense this way because he's Davis Mills?

01:40Or is it that certain things on the offense were starting to click

01:45and C.J. conceivably could have found Jaden Higgins more

01:49or could have used Christian Kirk more adequately?

01:53Like all of these things, we were starting to see that before C.J. got injured.

01:57And I know one of the big things is people saying, well, look,

02:00Davis actually finally, you know, started targeting Nico Collins a whole bunch.

02:04That had already started beforehand.

02:06He was – Nico was targeted ten times versus Seattle.

02:10That was the second highest time – second highest amount of targets he'd had

02:14up to that point in the season.

02:16In the first – in the ten throws that C.J. had in the Denver game,

02:21he targeted Nico three times.

02:22So three times in the first couple of series there.

02:26I think – and then he also – C.J. had been finding the other guys,

02:30the younger players especially.

02:32I think it's as much about Jaden Higgins and Jalen Knoll and Christian Kirk

02:36getting comfortable in the offense.

02:39And that's probably the bigger factor more so than Davis Mills doing a better job

02:44finding those guys.

02:45Yeah, D'Amico – I mean, look, D'Amico was getting asked about Nico targets

02:48going back to like week five.

02:50And D'Amico's answer all the time is, yeah, we would like to – you know,

02:53we'd like to target Nico – nothing bad happens when you target Nico Collins

02:57in general is what he's saying.

02:58So I think that had been almost a stated goal for the couple of games

03:02before C.J. got hurt.

03:03When I was on KHOU last night, one of the questions they asked us was,

03:07is there more pressure now on C.J. Stroud when he does come back

03:10based on the fact that Davis Mills won three games?

03:12What did you say?

03:13What did you tell him?

03:13I said, well, when I heard the word pressure,

03:16I thought that he's probably quite literally going to be under less pressure

03:21because the offensive line has steadily decreased the pressure rate

03:27over the course of the season.

03:29And Davis Mills was getting rid of the ball very quickly the entire time he was there.

03:33C.J. Stroud has been getting rid of the ball quickly previously as well.

03:38That was one of the reasons the pressure rate was getting better

03:40was just C.J. was getting rid of the ball quickly.

03:43But I think that this offensive line still has some work to do

03:47when it comes to running in the red zone and on the goal line.

03:51But they're just a vastly better offensive line than they were

03:54in the first few weeks of the season.

03:56I think C.J. is going to have cleaner pockets.

03:58Trent Brown playing as well as he has continues to be a huge shock to me

04:04because when you watch him, he does not look like a guy

04:08who's moving all that great or anything.

04:11But just through a combination of technique and his length and veteran savvy,

04:16he's been doing a good job.

04:17And I think the configuration they have out there right now with Titus at left guard,

04:23it's a whole lot of extra bulk on the field.

04:25It's a whole lot of veteran experience, and I think that they can continue to build on this

04:30and improve as an offensive line through the remainder of the season.

04:34When you're a wall, you don't have to move.

04:36You know, it's like the media lot over there, Seth.

04:39When we leave the stadium sometimes and that gate to get in right there on the side road,

04:44you walk in the little side gate there is locked,

04:46so we've got to walk all the way down to the main entrance to get into the media lot.

04:50That's Trent Brown.

04:51He's that locked gate right there.

04:52If I've got to walk all the way around this guy, the ball's gone by the time I can walk around him.

04:57Well, the other dynamic is that I think that the running backs are still leaving some yardage on the table at times.

05:04Tameko said as much in the press conference last week,

05:06and I think you can watch with your naked eye without even really knowing much about offensive football.

05:11You can see there's times where, like, wow, that is a gaping hole right there.

05:16Why are you not taking it?

05:20So that hopefully will improve as these guys see more pictures of clean blocking.

05:27Like Joe Mixon, look, I know Ian Rappaport said that Joe Mixon's not coming back this year.

05:32Joe Mixon pushed back against that on social media saying,

05:35hey, bro, you must know more about this than I do.

05:37I think that the way Ian Rappaport framed it was there isn't an expectation he'll come back.

05:43I think that's fair.

05:45Even if Joe Mixon feels like there's a chance he's going to come back,

05:48I don't think you can expect him to come back.

05:50No, no.

05:51You know, it's a huge bonus if he does,

05:54because Joe Mixon simply has more to him than either Nick Chubb or Woody Marks.

06:00But it's just, I can't sit here and bank on that or expect that it's going to happen.

06:04Well, and we asked Nick Casario about it a week ago,

06:07and one of the things Nick said in that answer was it's getting to be kind of late in the game here.

06:11And, you know, it's week 13 now.

06:13Like, how much time does Joe Mixon need to shake rust off to look like Joe Mixon also?

06:17He hasn't been doing any football stuff.

06:19I don't think it would be unfair to frame what Nick said as saying he doesn't expect him to return.

06:24I agree.

06:25He kept it open as a possibility, but it certainly didn't sound like he expected him to return.

06:29No, if you're reading tone, it definitely didn't.

06:32So, on your KHOU question, it's an interesting answer,

06:37because you were talking literally about the pressure the offensive line is allowing on him.

06:41What about the conventional type of sort of judgmental pressure on CJ?

06:45I don't think it's any different than it was before.

06:47I don't either.

06:47I mean, he was, the offense was embattled in a lot of ways, and they were inconsistent.

06:53They had struggled versus the better defenses.

06:56The offensive line still has to prove that when they go up against dominant pass rushers,

07:01and they've done, they've made definitive improvement.

07:04Ariante Urseri has come light years from where he was,

07:08but they still have to prove that they can produce versus the really, really good defenses.

07:14He's a starting quarterback in the NFL.

07:16That pressure will always be there, and there's zero chance of him losing his starting job.

07:21When I think of the pressure, I think of like, okay, you better do this or else.

07:26And I don't think there's any or else with CJ Stroud.

07:28He's going to be the starting quarterback for this team, not just this season,

07:31but I think for a long, long time, so, yeah.

07:34The Jaguars' defense is probably, and then it's, like, the Jaguars' defense is the best defense

07:41they've faced that they've performed really well against.

07:45If you just go by EPA, the Jags are the eighth best defense right now.

07:48Okay.

07:49You know, like conventional stats and whatever are a little bit different.

07:52They're more mediocre, I believe.

07:54But the Colts are the next really impressive defense, statistically at least.

08:02I think that's a little bit – the stats are a little bit misleading.

08:07I mean, you saw the letdown in the fourth quarter yesterday.

08:09But statistically, this is one of the best defenses they'll face all season.

08:14Yeah.

08:14So you get CJ Stroud back with a brand-new offensive line that he hasn't played

08:21against – he hasn't ever played behind this configuration.

08:24We'll see how it goes.

08:25Yeah.

08:253-0, man.

08:263-0 in this three-game CJ and Jalen Petrie were both out.

08:30You know, that's big.

08:31And as you pointed out earlier, I would guess that Petrie was already – Petrie was

08:36practicing before CJ was.

08:39So, you know, he was a day earlier than CJ in the protocol, being back out on the

08:44practice field.

08:44So I would guess we're getting Jalen Petrie back this week as well.

08:47Yeah, and that's a big one, too, is you're going to face – well, they had that

08:51banged-up secondary.

08:52They faced a couple of teams that don't have great wide receivers.

08:55And then these next two weeks, they've got some real threats that they're going to

08:58face in the wide receiving course.

09:00So Jalen Petrie coming back right now.

09:02If you had to time up Jalen Petrie missing a couple of games, these last two games were

09:06good ones for him to miss.

09:07Yeah, that's a good way to put it.

09:07And it's really good for him to come back versus the Colts.

09:09Good way to put it.

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