What is better than having a rookie quarterback ask his position coach and veterans about details of the game?
Having him seek critiques from the defensive coordinator.
According to Houston Texans defensive coordinator Matt Burke, No. 2 overall pick C.J. Stroud is known to hit him up after organized team activities for a few pointers.
“I’ll tell you one story, honestly,” Burke said May 31. “We did a two-minute drive at the end of practice sometime last week, and he threw into kind of a coverage we hadn’t shown. It was the first day we put the coverage in, and he threw in, and kind of probably was a throw he probably wanted back, I’ll just say it that way.
“The first thing he did when I was walking off the field was he grabbed me, said literally, ‘Coach Burke.’ And he spent about 10 minutes walking in off the field asking me about the coverage and just sort of what he saw and how we kind of set it up and talked through that.”
Burke is entering his 20th season as an assistant in the NFL, which gives him a wealth of experience when it comes to observing how quarterbacks carry themselves on the building and in the facility.
Said Burke: “His deliberateness and intent to try to get better, and like he’s literally grabbing everybody he can on the field. All those guys, Davis [Mills] and Case [Keenum] and those guys, like during stretch lines I go hang out and talk to them a little bit about some of the stuff we’re doing and the periods and just trying to get that back and forth. So he’s been very sort of intentional about learning and just learning defense, too, like what did you call there, what was that coverage or what did you do here. I respect that from him.”
Stroud spending time with the defensive side of the ball to learn more about their coverages is also a great way for the rookie to earn the respect of veterans on defense.
