Here’s how you go from someone in the mix for Offensive Rookie of the Year to someone in the mix for Most Valuable Player.
A second consecutive week necessitating a last-second score. A second straight week against a Super Bowl–caliber defense and defensive coordinator. A second consecutive week of being asked to not merely play strategically sanitized football.
On first-and-10, at your own 25-yard line, with the score tied and less than two minutes to play, you roll to your left, exposing your back to one side of the defense. You turn around, and B.J. Hill is screaming toward you. You step around him to find Myles Murphy, hands raised, about to slap at the football. You somehow emerge from a tunnel of offensive linemen to make a perfect touch throw to your wide receiver … and he drops it. No problem.
Two plays later, after a rush, you drop back again after barely getting the snap off. Find a small island of green grass, plant your foot and immediately begin the process of firing a pass down the seam to a tight end matched up on a cornerback, hitting him in the chest as he falls to the turf. Your coach opts not to use the single remaining timeout as the clock dips below 30 seconds.
Again, no problem.
So you get the offensive line set, you flag down Tank Dell and line him up on the right side of the formation. The clock is down to 20 seconds by the time you take the snap. A three-step drop yields nothing. All of your receivers are covered. After one nervous pat of the football you back-foot throw an in-stride checkdown to the running back with a clear path to the sideline.
Because you kept the timeout, you get to throw again. You read a legal pick and cock your arm before the receiver even makes the break, trusting a human you’ve known for just a handful of months with another of the biggest passes in your career. Noah Brown catches the ball, breaks a tackle and rolls 15 yards inside the outer reaches of your comfort zone.
You contain yourself, barely, on the sideline as Matt Ammendola hits a game-winning field goal, all the while content with the knowledge that you kept Joe Burrow, one of the most devastating late-game quarterbacks in the NFL, from taking another stab at the win.
It’s that simple for C.J. Stroud. Or at least he makes it look that way.
Sam Greene/The Enquirer/USA TODAY NETWORK
Stroud is playing so well that there is a legitimate argument to be made that the Texans have the leading candidate for Coach of the Year in DeMeco Ryans, one of the leading candidates for Executive of the Year in Nick Caserio, and a front-runner in both the Rookie of the Year and MVP conversations simultaneously (only Jim Brown has ever won both the rookie and MVP awards in one season). Over the past two weeks, Stroud has thrown for 826 yards and six touchdowns. He has made a number of precision late-game throws under pressure. He has shown he possesses both a serious coolness and a valuable wherewithal. He is not melting down alongside the clock.
Whether Stroud wins MVP depends on how one approaches the argument in the first place. There are Patrick Mahomes purists who would, correctly, argue that he deserves the trophy in perpetuity. Jalen Hurts may be the next most unstoppable player in the NFL. But there is a bigger picture here.
If Stroud fails, or even if Stroud resembled the quarterback he was this preseason, we have a completely different look and feel in Houston. His play—and concurrently the brilliant tutelage of offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik and quarterbacks coach Jerrod Johnson, both prospective head coaches—has lifted the collective value of the wide receiving corps we once considered anonymous. Of the overall message from the coach we once considered very overwhelmed in his first year. Of the GM we once considered out of his depth after two consecutive head-coaching hires that resulted in firings after a year.
Stroud is the difference between hope and chaos, between a potential playoff bid and an offseason rumination on organizational despair. Ask everyone in Texas how valuable that is.
