00:00He is facing a ton of pressure.
00:03I, Tyler, I just, I said, let me see what ChatGPT thinks about C.J. Stroud.
00:10I just said, hey, is C.J. Stroud facing a lot of pressure?
00:16Always fun to see what AI has to say on anything like this.
00:19It came back, fellas.
00:21Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud is under intense pressure
00:25heading into the 2026 season due to a multi-year statistical decline,
00:31high-profile playoff struggles,
00:33and a complete standstill in his contract extension.
00:36Wow.
00:37There you go.
00:38Negotiations.
00:39While his 2023 Offensive Rookie of the Year campaign set historic expectations,
00:45a stark cooling off of his production over the past two seasons
00:49has turned this upcoming year into a critical, prove-it, crossroads season.
00:58Stalled negotiations and playoff turnovers, decline inefficiency are problems as well.
01:06So, ChatGPT believes that he is under big pressure.
01:10And with that, Clint, I just, I think, obviously, he has a part to play in it.
01:14But I also think starting maybe OTAs, probably, the offseason right from the bat,
01:22definitely starting in training camp.
01:23So, the coaching staff, D'Amico Ryans, who knows him better than anybody on the staff,
01:31D'Amico Ryans, Nick Cayley, Slipensky, Hammett Jerry,
01:42the whole coaching staff that deals with C.J.,
01:45a big thing for them is going to be how they're able to handle him
01:51and the pressure that he's going to have on himself and all around him,
01:56especially at training camp all the way to the start of the season.
01:59Because he's coming out the blocks, Clint, against Josh Allen, Joe Burrow,
02:03Dak Prescott in his first four games.
02:05So, there is big pressure for him.
02:08I think a critical thing is how they're going to approach it with him.
02:12Yeah, look, a ton of pressure, no doubt about it.
02:15I mean, for an organization that constantly preaches it's a new team year to year,
02:19we know the 26-27 team here in Houston is going to be quarterbacked by C.J. Stroud.
02:24And so, it's in everybody's best interest to make sure that C.J. Stroud is the best version of himself.
02:30because that ultimately is going to dictate whether this team can get over the hump
02:33and get beyond the second round of the playoffs.
02:35Y'all can miss me with the defense wins championship stuff.
02:37It's important, no doubt about it, but we've seen the last couple of years
02:41that if your offense isn't up to snuff, then you're not really going to be competitive for a championship.
02:46You're not going to challenge anybody for a championship, right?
02:49The floor's been raised high enough to where this team can get into the playoffs year in, year out,
02:53win 10 games year in, year out, no question about it.
02:56But getting over that hump is going to be heavily dependent on C.J. Stroud, right?
03:03And you are exactly correct.
03:05This is who you're going to battle with in the 26-27 season.
03:09It's in your best interest to do everything you can to get him back to the rookie year confidence level,
03:18the rookie year playing free, the rookie year success that he was having.
03:23Find that C.J. Stroud, and it starts now.
03:26The big part of this with C.J. Stroud this season is to understand that it starts right now.
03:31This isn't a middle of training camp.
03:33This isn't a last preseason game of the year.
03:37This isn't a week of game one.
03:39This is a right-now situation.
03:41I've got a handful of things here, Ron,
03:43and how this staff needs to approach C.J. Stroud on multiple fronts, right?
03:48I'm giving you the secret sauce here.
03:50This isn't rocket science, man.
03:51Here's the deal.
03:52Physically, do not touch his mechanics.
03:55I've heard random comments about his mechanics.
03:57His mechanics are not a problem.
03:59C.J. Stroud, as he is, can spin it with anybody out there.
04:02Mechanics are not a problem for C.J. Stroud.
04:05Everything you do, all the reps that you get C.J. Stroud in the offseason
04:09for technical and mechanical reasons, it's rep to maintain.
04:14That's it.
04:14All of the offseason work.
04:15I don't want to hear about the straight line running with the strength coach,
04:18with his personal coach, offseason coach, whatever it is.
04:21I don't want to hear about all that crap.
04:22I love the guy's name, Clint.
04:24He's got a great name.
04:25But I don't want to hear about C.J. Stroud's speed and things of that nature.
04:28We're going to do quarterback things.
04:29He already does them all well.
04:31Rep to maintain.
04:33Good game, rep to maintain.
04:34Bad game, rep to maintain.
04:36You've got a great clean pocket.
04:37You keep repping.
04:38If you're getting a hell beat out of you, you keep repping.
04:41It doesn't change based off of that week's play or last year's play, right?
04:46So leave his mechanics alone.
04:47Rep to maintain.
04:49Number two, the messaging that's going into his head.
04:52Stop talking about turnovers.
04:54Stop talking about the chains.
04:56Stop talking about all the conservative things that everybody over there
04:59offensively believes in.
05:01Stop talking about the turnovers in the playoffs
05:05and the risk that he took playing the quarterback position in the playoffs.
05:09The messaging is extremely important.
05:12C.J. Stroud is going into year four.
05:13C.J. Stroud has been in this organization with a defensive-minded head coach,
05:16Nick Casario.
05:18If he doesn't understand how important it is, generally speaking,
05:21or how important it is to this organization for the quarterback
05:25to protect the football and for the quarterback to play efficient
05:29and stay ahead of the chains
05:30and for the quarterback to protect himself and communicate,
05:32if he doesn't understand those things, then he's not the guy.
05:34He's the hardest-headed quarterback we've ever seen.
05:36Everybody in Houston understands that Houston Texans offensively
05:39are going to emphasize those things.
05:41Stop talking to your quarterback about it.
05:43It's not going to do any good.
05:45Do everything you can to get him to play free, right,
05:48which includes the messaging that you're giving him every day, all right?
05:52Everything we do schematically on the offensive side of the football
05:55needs to start with simplify.
05:57You know the shortcomings of C.J. Stroud.
06:00Every quarterback has shortcomings.
06:02Whoever's responsible for the quarterback over there, Nick Caley,
06:06you mentioned Szaplinski, D'Amico Rines, Nick Casario,
06:10you know his shortcomings.
06:12You know what he struggles with.
06:13You know what his strengths and weaknesses are.
06:16Play to those strengths.
06:17Everything you do offensively at this point in time should start with simplify.
06:22What does he do well, and the majority of what we do is going to be that, right?
06:28I think you should simplify your protections, right?
06:32I think you should simplify your protections.
06:35It's to simplify protections.
06:36You don't go into a game with 42 different protections.
06:38Go in with 20 and have easy calls.
06:42If they're A-gap pressures, hey, we're going to squeeze it.
06:44We're going to leave the widest guy unblocked.
06:46And, C.J., you've got to find an answer, right?
06:47The worst thing that I've seen in three years of C.J. Straub when it comes to the
06:51obviously the offensive line play has not been great.
06:53The turnover at offense coordinator has not been great.
06:55The injuries have been bad.
06:57But when you look at the quarterback play, the most disturbing thing, Ron,
07:00is when he snaps the football versus pressure,
07:03there's a high percentage of time where he doesn't know where the pressure is coming from.
07:07There is a huge difference in me snapping the ball knowing that everybody's not blocked,
07:12but I know number 55 coming off the end is who I've got to beat.
07:15See, that's not ideal, but it's not a problem.
07:18I can fix that, right?
07:19When I snap the football, and I don't know if it's the safety that's in the A-gap
07:23or the edge rusher to my left, I don't know which one of those guys is coming free
07:27because the play clock got us and now we're snapping the ball in a hurry.
07:30That's the worst-case scenario.
07:31It happens too often with this team, or at least it appears to happen too often with C.J. Straub.
07:36So simplify, simplify, simplify.
07:38You can do that without just being totally vanilla.
07:41You can do that without cutting your offense in half.
07:43You can simplify.
07:44So that's number three.
07:46Number four, I think you've got to use the basic weapons in offensive football, Ron,
07:50to give your quarterback opportunities to simplify the game.
07:54How about you play with some tempo?
07:56It's football 101.
07:57You play with tempo, the defense can only change so much.
08:00The defense can only run so many different coverages
08:03and can only vary from what they did the previous play.
08:05How about we use that to clear things up for C.J. Stroud?
08:10Motions, shifts, we've talked about that, screen game,
08:12all of those things are, they leave a lot to be desired over here.
08:18That would help C.J. Stroud.
08:19Last but not least, they should gear every, I think it should be an extreme.
08:24All these things should be an extreme if we're being honest.
08:26Yeah.
08:27It should be an extreme, Ron.
08:29Everything in training camp this year for the Houston Texans should start with one question.
08:33Every period that you put on the schedule should start with,
08:38is this going to make C.J. Stroud better?
08:40Is this going to make C.J. Stroud more confident?
08:42Is this going to make C.J. Stroud more comfortable?
08:45That's where it should start.
08:47Training camp last year, we're going to go out every day
08:49and we're going to prove we're the best defense in football.
08:50We're going to do it against our number ones.
08:52We're going to do it all day long.
08:54That's what the message was last year.
08:56This year, it needs to be C.J. is going to get three weeks to a month of a clean
09:00pocket.
09:01C.J. is going to see the ball leave his hands and get caught for touchdowns.
09:03C.J. is going to see answers to every pressure.
09:06We're going to get the football out.
09:06If we're not, we're going to line up and do it again.
09:09That should be the priority number one for D'Amico Ryan's going into training camp.
09:13Hey, talk about it.
09:14Tell him about it.
09:16We've got to get our quarterback comfortable, man.
09:18Confidence and trust is huge for C.J. Strattoff going into this.
09:22Non-negotiable, bro.
09:24Got to be.
09:24Got to be.
Comments