A rookie franchise quarterback can break a city’s heart. I was there when Baker Mayfield came off the bench and led a comeback victory over the Jets, and the late, great Jim Brown and all of Cleveland coronated him as its new king.
I was there when Sam Darnold rebounded from a pick-six on his first NFL pass and had Jets fans at Ford Field chanting “J-E-T-S, Jets! Jets! Jets!” at the end. They were calling the state Wentzylvania when Carson Wentz became the talk of the town in Philadelphia.
It is why you resist the urge to send them to Canton in a limo.
But hearts in Houston are racing over C.J. Stroud, and with good reason.
So far, he is a slam dunk Offensive Rookie of the Year: 14 touchdowns, one interception. The way he snatched victory from the jaws of defeat last Sunday in the pressure-packed 11th hour with his fifth TD pass against the Buccaneers with 6 seconds left to Tank Dell might have reminded you of Joe Montana at the end of Super Bowl XXIII asking if that was John Candy up in the stands.
It is far too early to call Stroud “The Natural.” But everything about the player and the person suggests he is on the fast track to stardom.
“In my opinion,” Texans safety Jalen Pitre told Serby Says, “he’s already great because he’s doing a hard job at a young age. I think there is no limit for him. He, honestly, to me, could be the best ever if he continues to just show up every day and continue to do what he does.”
Stroud, eager to duel Joe Burrow in Cincinnati on Sunday, is carrying the banner for all maligned Ohio State quarterbacks and has been making a mockery of the predraft cognitive tests that led so-called experts to disrespect and dismiss him.
Charles Davis was in the CBS booth last Sunday alongside Ian Eagle watching Stroud, seemingly without a pulse, basically yawn with the game on the line. Davis was just as impressed with Stroud’s performance in the production meeting.
“He does not mind describing himself as a ball junkie without jumping up on a table and yelling it to the world,” Davis said. “He told us that on Friday nights, Case Keenum and Davis Mills and their wives take C.J. to dinner. And C.J. said, ‘I’m a fifth wheel.’ And he didn’t say anything about bringing anyone else. Joe Namath is not walking through that door in a C.J. Stroud jersey. He’s not worried about taking over Houston and being seen here, here, here, here and here. He wants to be seen in the facility, and at the stadium on game day. That’s pretty much it.
“He told us straight up he doesn’t have a girlfriend. Now, is it any of our business? No. But we didn’t ask. All he said was, ‘I do ball. I don’t have a girlfriend, I don’t have this. I do ball.’ But he didn’t say it in one of those ways like, ‘Look at me, I’ve made a conscious choice.’ No. That’s who he is.”
Who is he with a football in his hands?
“He loved Michael Vick growing up, but he did say, ‘But I realized my play style is not gonna be Michael Vick’s play style,’ ” Davis said. “Then he said Drew Brees. And if you look at that, there’s a lot there. Footwork, anticipation with throws, beating people with your mind before the football’s snapped, then go to your post-snap. Watch C.J. Stroud’s footwork and watch how he gets away from center and goes to throw, and gets his body in the right place so the throws are easy throws. His footwork takes his arm right where it’s supposed to go and makes the throws much easier and sharper.”
Stroud’s in-game adjustments were eye-opening to Davis.
“I said in the first half there were a couple of times I thought he tried to keep a play alive too long, sometimes you just gotta know when to cut your losses,” Davis said. “And in the second half, that went away. You saw it improving in front of your eyes.
“And I know we’re getting kind of crazy with this AI stuff that is scaring the heck out of all of us, too. But part of AI, as I understand it, is that AI takes in information, it takes in input, and it just keeps reforming itself better, better, better, better, better. I used to say that about Brees. Brees was like AI. As his game went on, he kept taking everything you threw at him and then he turned it around and beat you up with it. I thought I saw Stroud do that on Sunday.
“And by the way? Tampa’s a huge blitz team under Todd Bowles, right? They quit blitzing him. That tells me about respect for a rookie, because he was beating the blitz. Todd backed up on it.”
Stroud is both a natural-born leader and a servant leader.
“Early in the ballgame he hits Dalton Schultz with a pass, Dalton goes downfield, gets hit, ball pops free,” Davis said. “Tampa Bay recovers, right? Very next series, first play of the series, ball goes right back to Dalton Schultz. We’re like, well of course, that’s what good quarterbacks do. Rookies? To have that kind of presence, to take care of the veteran, to let him know, ‘You’re the dude, man. We’re gonna be here all season together, don’t worry.’ ”
Stroud announced to the football world not to worry about his athleticism in a four-TD, 42-41 loss to Georgia in the 2022 Peach Bowl.
“But he is going to beat you much more from the pocket, and with pocket movement and delivering the football,” Davis said. “He wants to take care of his guys downfield more than he wants to take off and go. But don’t be fooled, he can take off and go, he’s athletic enough to do it. I think he just chooses not to. And what I’m seeing from him this year, our game? That was his third offensive line combo already this year. And if you go back to OTAs and minicamps, it’s his fourth center, and this kid’s making it all work.”
Stroud doesn’t need a JaMarcus Russell arm, or a Jeff George arm.
“I’m not gonna sit here and say he’s gonna throw it through the car wash and not get it wet,” Davis said. “He doesn’t have that kind of a gun. But his arm talent is good, and there’s no throw he can’t make with the right touch on it. He can do all the things that you’re looking for.”
Pitre has witnessed it all in practice.
“Sometimes if the receivers are covered just a little bit he’s throwing them open, and if they’re not covered, he’s making it easy for them to catch,” Pitre said. “C.J. is elite passing, but his mental as well. C.J. is really aware of what’s going on on the field at all times. I think when you have a quarterback that is aware, it just makes it easy.”
Pitre describes Stroud as cold-blooded on the field. Warm-hearted off it seems to apply. He is no rebel without a cause, but he does have a cause. Coleridge Stroud is serving a 38-year prison sentence for 2015 charges of kidnapping, robbery and misdemeanor sexual battery that devastated the family. C.J. Stroud railed against a corrupt criminal justice system immediately after his heroics last week and prays that his father can watch him play one day. His message: Criminals are human, too.
“He’s very personable,” Pitre said. “He’s a guy that’s gonna make sure that he knows a lot about everybody. Very friendly. Gonna mess with you here and there, but it’s very authentic, like it’s nothing forced, and I think when you can have a leadership style like that, it works because he’s not stepping outside of himself, he’s being himself every day.”
From Day 1. “[DE Jonathan] Grenard told me that ‘C’ was earned by Day 2 he was there, like the whole team bought into him,” Davis said. “This is not one of those ceremonial Cs. This is the legit item.”
Pitre elaborates on why Stroud is one of the captains: “Coming in he wanted to earn the trust of his teammates and he did that right away. He’s a great quarterback and an even better person, so thankful that we got him on our team.”
DeMeco Ryans looks like the real deal as rookie head coach. Stroud looks like the real deal as a rookie franchise quarterback, who knows he knows how to play the game.
“But he also is not averse to be coached,” Davis said. “He wants to be coached, but he will let you know the best way to coach him.
“He’s like, ‘I don’t need to be yelled at. No one is harder on himself than I am. I know what I messed up, I’m gonna beat myself up enough. You don’t have to yell at me. Correct it, we’ll get it right, and let’s keep moving. But I don’t need to be yelled at.’ He didn’t say it like he put his fist up like, ‘If you yell at me we’re gonna fight.’ ”
Davis, like most, rated Panthers No. 1-overall pick Bryce Young (eight TDs, seven interceptions) as his top quarterback. It is certainly premature to reach the verdict that the Panthers blew it by allowing Stroud to fall into the Texans’ laps as the second pick of the draft. But Houston, you do not have a problem. The Texans are 4-4 and not interested in conceding the AFC South to the Jaguars.
“When any city is rewarded a great quarterback,” Pitre said, “it’s very encouraging to not only the team and the organization, but also the city.”
Or, as Davis says: “This kid, he’s got a chance to be special.”