- 5 weeks ago
C.J. Stroud's taken a lot of criticism this offseason and rightfully so. But has it gone too far? Zach Gelb and B. Scott discuss it here.
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00:00B. Scott, when the season ended with C.J. Stroud, I thought the criticism was fair about him.
00:05We all know what he's done for this franchise.
00:07They were in the absolute outhouse.
00:09He comes in.
00:11I haven't been in the penthouse, but they're in a four-star resort.
00:14They're going back to the postseason.
00:16They've won a postseason game each and every year.
00:18But we know how the last two years ended with this franchise.
00:21A bad offense is showing up against Kansas City where the defense played well in the first half.
00:26And then you do get to last year, I was at that game at Gillette Stadium where C.J. Stroud,
00:32he was just allergic to making sure that the Texans held on to the football in that one.
00:37And the Texans' defense kept them in the game as long as they can.
00:41But now this NFL Top 100 list did come out.
00:43I would have thought that if Bryce Young was going to make it, that C.J. Stroud would make it
00:49as well.
00:50It's not as if I view C.J. Stroud as an elite quarterback.
00:53But the more and more names that we come on out, the more and more that I just go,
00:57yeah, the league is really out on C.J. Stroud because he's not going to make this list.
01:01Yeah, well, not only did he not make the NFL Top 100, or it looks like he's not going to
01:05make the Top 100,
01:06but also that list that ESPN did where they polled the executives and coaches
01:10and the scouts from around the league to rank the Top 10 quarterbacks,
01:15he was nowhere to be found on that list.
01:18It wasn't even mentioned as an honorable mention and kind of barely got also receiving votes at the end.
01:24And I think when you combine these two ideas, so the Top 100 is the player voted, right?
01:30It's the players voting on their peers.
01:33And then this ESPN thing is the executives and the scouts.
01:38So that's pretty much everybody from around the league, you know, polled all at once.
01:42Once you take it kind of all together and he's not in the Top 10 of his position in this
01:46one poll
01:48and then he's not considered a Top 100 player amongst his peers,
01:53it makes you look at it and say that the entire league has kind of changed its opinion on him.
01:58And I think that it's fair to criticize C.J. Stroud.
02:01I don't know how you wouldn't after a playoff performance like the one that he had.
02:04I mean, even the game that he had that they won was not one to write home about.
02:09And then they go out there and end the season the way that they did,
02:12where it feels like the criticism has turned disrespectful and, like, it's just gone way too far,
02:17just to be honest about it.
02:19It's like Bryce Young ahead of him.
02:21I mean, what are we doing?
02:22Bryce Young ahead of him, I guess, based off of one year,
02:25as if these guys have not played three seasons in the NFL.
02:29Like, I just don't know how you arrive at that play.
02:31So I think there is fair criticism on C.J. Stroud.
02:34But if you ask me if we're at a fair place right now, I think it's going too far.
02:38It's going a little bit overboard.
02:39Yeah, so the top 10 list by the executives, I could understand why he didn't get a sniff on that.
02:45Like, I'm not going to sit here and be irate about that.
02:48The top 100 list, I don't think it's absurd that he's not in it.
02:53But when you see a quarterback like Bryce Young in it right out of the jump,
02:58I would have thought with what Stroud has accomplished so far,
03:01that he would at least get the tiebreaker,
03:02even if Bryce Young is starting to close some ground on the big sprint and the big lead that C
03:09.J. Stroud got out to.
03:10So it's a little surprising how he didn't make the top 100 list, but I'm not totally shocked to make
03:17the top 100 list.
03:18But you go into this season, and we talk about the Astros having no direction.
03:23We know the Texans are a team that defensively, with Will Anderson and Derek Stingley and Daniil Hunter,
03:30that that defense is going to be at 100.
03:32And that's one of, if not the best defenses in the NFL.
03:36And that defense is Super Bowl caliber.
03:38But you look at the offense, the guy at the quarterback position is someone that has a major question mark
03:44where,
03:44how do you even rate what C.J. Stroud is?
03:47Like, he's not a bad quarterback.
03:49He's not a below-average quarterback.
03:51But is he average?
03:52Is he good?
03:53Is he very good?
03:55You know, is he great?
03:56Where on B. Scott's scale do you have C.J. Stroud going into this season on how you view him
04:02as a quarterback?
04:02Because the rest of the league is saying right now, like, yeah, he's fine, but he's not anything that you
04:07need to have.
04:08No, I think right now that I would have him as good, not great.
04:11The problem with the criticism is that the league seems to almost be saying that he's not even good.
04:16That's where the disrespect for me comes in.
04:19I don't think that he's great.
04:20I think at this point, I think he's got the potential to be great,
04:23and he's got some traits that would make you think that he could be great.
04:26But could you look at the last couple of years and honestly say that what you've seen has been great?
04:32No, absolutely.
04:34So it's a prove-it year for C.J. Stroud when you talk about the contract,
04:37when you talk about just the conversation about him as a quarterback.
04:42But, Zach, the only reason why I point out that ESPN poll or the top ten thing
04:46is because of what we're kind of just talking about the trajectory of his career at this point.
04:51Like, think about this, Zach.
04:53If you were to flip-flop year number one, number three, he's on that list of top ten quarterbacks.
05:00Oh, yeah.
05:00You know what I mean?
05:01Like, he's on that list.
05:02Like, if you had done this and even had, again, the body of work of just what last year was,
05:08even with the disappointment of last year, and just leave that middle year, the 2024 year, right there,
05:13then he's on that list.
05:15I mean, he was the offensive rookie of the year, and he finished top eight in MVP voting that year
05:20as a rookie.
05:21And so that's just to speak to how far he's fallen in such a short amount of time to go
05:28from top eight in MVP voting
05:30and the offensive rookie of the year and a pro bowler and kind of this kind of, like, new sensation
05:37to not even thought of as a top ten quarterback or a top ten guy at his own position
05:42and out of the top 100 entirely.
05:45That is drastic.
05:47That is a lot.
05:48And I think that is, I think, a more drastic punishment than what his actual decline has been.
05:54I can acknowledge that it hasn't been over the last couple of years exactly what it was the rookie year,
05:59but I don't think the fall has been as drastic as the conversation and the view on him has been.
06:06But to answer your question, is he a great quarterback?
06:08Can you say he's great with a straight face?
06:11And honestly, absolutely not.
06:13Not right now.
06:14And you've got a few things here that are working against him.
06:17They're going to the destination of that contract extension,
06:20and if it came out tomorrow that he got $55 million a year, I think the league would be laughing
06:25at him.
06:25You're also moving in the direction that the Texans have been restored as a franchise
06:30where they're in these games where everyone's parachuting in that they may not watch the Texans
06:35the first 15 weeks of the season.
06:38Then you see them in the postseason, and it's like, uh-oh, this is really ugly.
06:42And that's the part where, yes, to a credit to C.J. Stroud, to a credit to D'Amico Ryans,
06:48to a credit to Will Anderson, this organization is back in the mix.
06:53And you look at the imbalance that's going on with this organization right now where the defense is a defense
06:59that,
06:59just like Seattle, and then you probably have Texans fans sitting there and saying,
07:03wait, Seattle just won the Super Bowl.
07:05We saw New England go to the Super Bowl.
07:07And I get it that Drake May had a great regular season where he was runner-up for the MVP,
07:12but he wasn't good in the postseason.
07:14So you see the two teams playing in the Super Bowl, it's not like either one of their quarterbacks in
07:20the postseason were phenomenal.
07:22Those were two teams that got to the Super Bowl because of their defenses.
07:25And Texans fans are sitting there saying, wait, we got just as good, if not better, defenses than New England
07:31and then also Seattle, but the quarterback right now can't give you, even though he's good in the regular season,
07:38he can't give you game manager average stuff in the postseason, which ends up being their detriment.
07:44Well, the big disappointment, aside from the opportunity cost of losing in that position,
07:50is that if C.J. Stroud played to the level and the standard that he actually played in in the
07:55regular season,
07:56which was honestly a ho-hum, somewhat underwhelming C.J. Stroud, but he did a decent enough job of taking
08:03care.
08:03Would have been good enough.
08:04Would have been good enough.
08:05He did a decent enough job of taking care of the ball and mitigating risk.
08:09And all of that went out the window in both postseason games,
08:12both the one that they won and the one that they lost.
08:14If he just does that enough, much less to speak of a different quarterback if he plays in that way.
08:21So I think that part is somewhat just disappointing,
08:25and you have to hold C.J. Stroud accountable for that point-blank period.
08:29But then beyond that, I do have to say, and this is not to make excuses
08:32because I just told you what the issue is with C.J. Stroud.
08:35But beyond that, I think the examples that you mentioned,
08:40Seattle with Sam Darnold and the infrastructure that they had there,
08:43they could run the ball worth a damn.
08:46They could pass block.
08:49They could run block.
08:50They had the requisite weapons.
08:52Oh, by the way, they had an offensive coordinator that you believe in,
08:55and Clint Kubiak, who's now a head coach,
08:57who went on and got a head coaching job off of that, right?
09:01Josh McDaniels over in New England is actually doing, I guess,
09:05the version of the offense that the Texans are trying to do here with Nick Caley
09:09and C.J. Stroud, but sort of the, not necessarily the originator,
09:13but the one who does it much better than that, right?
09:16So, like, you look at their situations, not just the overall organization,
09:21but offensively specifically.
09:23They got better coordinators.
09:24They got better offensive lines.
09:26They got the better weapons.
09:27And here's C.J. Stroud with no running game,
09:31with a rookie offensive coordinator,
09:34his second offensive coordinator in three years,
09:36and is supposed to kind of make lemonade out of the lemons.
09:41And it hasn't just has not shown that he's up to that level,
09:45that he can make up for the surroundings that are around him.
09:48The Seattle one I could give you.
09:50The New England one I can't.
09:51And I understand your point on the offensive coordinator.
09:54But New England's, and I'm a Patriot fan.
09:55Yeah, the offensive one was horrible.
09:57Fair enough.
09:58Their run game was solid.
10:01Like, Ramondre Stevenson's a good running back.
10:02Traevan Henderson is going to be a dude down the road,
10:06but not in the moment.
10:07But the Patriots didn't have these tremendous wide receivers last year.
10:10Now, I know Nico Collins was hurt for the postseason game,
10:13and I love Nico Collins, and it was nice to see him get his due
10:15back-to-back years on this top 10 list, being in the top 10.
10:19But I got to see C.J. Stroud, yes, be a game manager,
10:22but not be the reason why they lose.
10:24Because you look at Drake May, and I know it wasn't the case in the postseason,
10:28but in the regular season, he elevated that team and played great football
10:33where, quite frankly, I thought he should have won the MVP.
10:35And what Drake May has done in his first year and a half in the league,
10:39with not the greatest surrounding environment with him,
10:42I don't see why C.J. Stroud can't do that.
10:44And you made a great point where if C.J. Stroud would have had his first year
10:49as the third year, everyone would have a totally different view of C.J. Stroud.
10:53But I do wonder if that early success got to C.J. Stroud a little bit,
11:00because I've been around C.J. twice.
11:01I've had good conversations with him.
11:03I interviewed him one-on-one, then also interviewed him at the Heisman.
11:06And he seems like a guy that is just all football, not the stardom.
11:12And I think once he had that rookie season, it just got to a point where,
11:17remember that game up against the Bears, Caleb Williams' rookie year,
11:20where he's given him advice like C.J. Stroud is Tom Brady or Peyton Manning.
11:25It's like, dude, you played one year.
11:27You and Caleb Williams and C.J. Stroud, you guys are like the same age.
11:31You're like the same guys.
11:32It'd be like if I got here, B. Scott, and after doing one show with you,
11:37you know, continue to go through the grind, you're going to understand what it is.
11:41It's like we're on the same playing field here.
11:43You're like, well, what are you doing?
11:45And that moment, since it kind of became captured and everyone has kind of run with it,
11:50it's one of those moments where you go, ugh, like was that really it for C.J. Stroud?
11:55Because since then, I think he needs to be the one getting advice from a lot of other quarterbacks
11:59in the league, not being the one that gives it.
12:00Yeah, there's no doubt that the trajectory has changed since that moment that you're talking about.
12:05And I even defended that moment because I thought, like, at the time, C.J. Stroud was noticeably more accomplished
12:12than Caleb Williams, who was only playing his second NFL game.
12:15And C.J. Stroud had just come off a historic rookie season.
12:20He was already a pro bowler.
12:22As I mentioned before, he had just finished top eight in MVP voting.
12:25For a guy that had only had one year in the league, he was fairly accomplished.
12:30So I thought in the moment, he was actually qualified to give the guy advice despite them
12:35being around the same age.
12:37But I can't do nothing with the results since then, right?
12:39Like, he has certainly been humbled since that moment, I believe.
12:43And I don't know if he really intended for it to come off the way that it did.
12:47But either way, like, it is just, it has not been the same since then.
12:53And I think that the issue is that they're trying to recapture that.
12:56He is a bit of a prisoner of his own success, both in terms of, I think, like, how he's
13:03viewed publicly, but even maybe a little bit how he viewed himself, right?
13:06Like, had this instant arrival and has not been able to match that or capture that ever
13:12since and is still trying to to this moment.
13:14And the other part about this two years, C.J.
13:19Stroud had this incredible rookie season.
13:21The next year, he's fallen off people's list.
13:23This Jaden Daniels, right, had this incredible rookie season, then gets hurt, has fallen off
13:29people's list.
13:29And I get it, Drake May was his second season, but it was his first true season as a starter.
13:33He had this incredible first full season as a starter.
13:37And now it's like, OK, that spot that was for C.J.
13:41three years ago became Jaden Daniels' spot.
13:43Then that spot for Jaden Daniels ended up becoming Drake May's spot.
13:47And we're going to see in the AFC with these young quarterbacks who's going to be able
13:50to hold on to that spot moving forward.
13:52Because so far in the AFC or the NFC, whether it's Stroud or whether it's Daniels, those three
13:58guys have been the guy that have been anointed.
14:00And it's been one-year journeys for Jaden Daniels and also for C.J.
14:04Stroud.
14:05I mean, look at the list of guys that have passed him up, right?
14:08Guys that have been drafted.
14:09You just gave them right there.
14:11Jaden Daniels.
14:12Caleb Williams.
14:13Drake May, obviously.
14:15And then the guy in his own draft class and Bryce Young being mentioned on the NFL Top
14:21100 and it looks like he's not going to make it.
14:23I mean, that's four quarterbacks right there who either weren't in the league when he did
14:27his thing as a rookie or weren't considered nearly at the level as he was at that time
14:32who have now passed him up.
14:34And they're in a crucial point.
14:35And I talked about this last week with Luke where I said if Baker Mayfield doesn't get
14:40that deal done with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, maybe it's just time to move off of C.J.
14:45And you give Baker a three-year contract to try to go chase that ring because, you know,
14:48the defense is good enough.
14:50You know, I'm sure they'll monitor Joe Burrow, maybe his displeasure that could be brewing
14:55with the Cincinnati Bengals as far as a stay with the Baltimore Ravens.
15:00But you walk into this year, it's a big prove-it spot.
15:03It's a make-or-break year for C.J.
15:05Stroud, not only with the contract, with the finances, but also his staying power with
15:10this organization.
15:11Where is it just going to be the Texans where they get in the postseason, they win one game
15:15and they go home?
15:16Or are they going to be able to elevate quickly and be a team that's playing on Super Bowl
15:20Sunday?
15:21Because, B. Scott, I'll sound like a broken record player.
15:24This defense is Super Bowl legit.
15:27And if the quarterback could just be 85%, 80% of what he was his first year, they have
15:35a chance to go to the Super Bowl this season in L.A.
15:37Dude, you're talking to the people of Houston, man.
15:39We felt that way already just this past year, right?
15:42They would have gone to the AFC Championship game to face Jarrett Stidham for a chance to
15:48go to the Super Bowl, which they have not done.
15:50Hadn't even been to the AFC Championship game for that matter.
15:52But, I mean, the opportunity cost, I think it's really still a sticking point for Texans
15:58fans.
15:58The reason why a lot of them are down on C.J.
16:00Stroud right now.
16:01You want to know how bad it was for Stroud in that playoff game?
16:03And everyone knows he was just horrible.
16:05It goes without being said.
16:06I took my girlfriend to the game, and we were sitting like 10, 15 rows off the 50-yard
16:11line.
16:11And I'm a Patriot fan, so she's rooting for the Patriots.
16:14I'm rooting for the Patriots.
16:15And at halftime, she goes to me, why are you not happy?
16:18And I go, why am I not happy?
16:20And I got to be respectful here.
16:22And remember, right, she's my girlfriend and not one of my buddies watching the games.
16:25I'm like, that quarterback for the Texans was awful.
16:29And the Patriots don't have, like, a firm control of the game.
16:32Yeah.
16:33Like, I was fearing in the second half that maybe the Pats were a game.
16:37Because you saw a quarterback that was seeing ghosts in that divisional round.
16:42And even my girlfriend was like, ah, don't worry.
16:44That other quarterback, he stinks right now.
16:46And she's not a football savant.
16:47She doesn't have a Ph.D. in football like you and I do.
16:50Yeah.
16:50And so when it comes to C.J. Stroud, like, I think even she could say, hey, I don't know
16:55if that's a $60 million quarterback, right?
16:57Like, that's the question.
16:57He's, even if he's good, how good is he really?
17:01And he's rookie quarterback, rookie contract good.
17:04But is he 50, 55, $60 million plus a year good?
17:09And that's the question.
17:09Well, if I told my girlfriend that he could be in line to make $55 million, she'd probably
17:13be like, okay, then what do the actual good quarterbacks make?
17:16And I'd be like, well, that money, and she'd be like, oh, that's an overpay.
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