NFL winners and losers: C.J. Stroud is broken

The Houston Texans entered Foxboro with one of the best defenses we’ve seen in a long time. All the team needed to win from the quarterback position was mediocrity. They didn’t need something special, dynamic play wasn’t required — just a below-average QB performance would have punched their ticket to the AFC Championship game, where we’d then be talking about whether or not the smothering Texans’ defense was good enough to hoist the Lombardi Trophy.

Instead they got C.J. Stroud. More aptly, a recently-discovered, horrific version of their once-promising quarterback, who wasn’t just bad against the Patriots, but the nexus of their demise. Two years of regression reached rock bottom on a national stage, and there’s no way to sugar coat what happened. Stroud didn’t just struggle, he barely played the quarterback position at all — making the kind of mistakes you’d expect from a high school quarterback, not a former Pro Bowler.

The four interceptions were bad enough, but all were an extension of three core areas where Stroud struggled:

1. Lack of pocket awareness/presence
2. Poor accuracy
3. Bad decision making

There’s no doubt that the Texans’ offensive line was reeling for much of the game. Injuries compounded with an innate lack of talent to put them in a blender, but Stroud’s tunnel vision made everything so much worse. There was no awareness of where pressure was coming from, or adjustments to mitigate the pass rush. At no point did Stroud climb the pocket, or make his throwing motion more compact to get the ball out quicker. Instead he was statuesque, taking hit after hit, or having the ball batted on release, sometimes both.

Even on the rare occasions when the pocket was clean for a moment, Stroud’s accuracy was abysmal. All afternoon he was missing routine passes high, or wide — and this was married with throws you simply don’t see in the NFL because they’re normally weeded out of even the most mediocre quarterbacks by the time they leave college. The Carlton Davis interception is a perfect example of this.

Watching this clip dozens of times I’m still not sure how Stroud managed to put the ball on the receiver’s inside hip, rather that throw too wide to the sideline. On an out breaking route you always throw to the outside hip, away from the defensive back where only the receiver can get it. On a standard mediocre play you’ll see the quarterback put this ball too far out, often resulting in a dropped pass — but at least there’s another down. Throwing this pass behind the receiver while rolling out simply makes absolutely no sense.

Similar mistakes arose on the first pick. Not only was the ball placement here horrible, the decision to make this throw was bad.

You don’t throw back shoulder to the inside. It’s quarterbacking 101. Hell, you don’t attempt this throw when there’s a DB over the top at all. The only thing you can do is flatten out the angle, and drive the ball lower — but that wouldn’t have worked with the receiver’s body position. It was simply a pass that should have never been thrown.

We don’t even need to analyze this next one. There is no planet in which the correct decision it to arm punt the ball and hope a teammate will get it.

There isn’t some great mystery to unravel when it comes to Stroud. The unfortunate reality is that his rookie season looks like an aberration. It’s always a mistake to read too far into a rookie season, both bad and good. Collectively we were so quick to leap to the assumption that Stroud was the heir apparent, that we ignored two factors: Firstly that defenses learn to adjust when they get a year of film, and secondly that rookie season can lie — just look at what Mac Jones did in his first year with the Patriots.

Stroud feels unique, different, somehow worse. This is a quarterback who has regressed back to high school level play. On Sunday he made mistakes that should have been ironed out well before reaching the NFL. Saying that he struggled because of the weather is ridiculous, because weather doesn’t remove every ounce of QB fundamentals from your brain and replace then with the mush we saw on Sunday.

Everything is bad for the Texans, and their future looks uncertain as a result.

And now more winners and losers from the weekend …

Winner: Everything about the Seattle Seahawks

At this point it’s difficult to see how anyone will be able to stop Seattle from winning the Super Bowl. They’re the only team left that looks competent enough in every phase to warrant winning the Lombardi Trophy. The performance from Sam Darnold on Saturday night wasn’t brilliant, but he didn’t need to be — because there was an understanding that making sensible plays, not forcing the ball, and letting the rest of the team takeover was the play.

What makes Seattle the Super Bowl favorite at this point is their ability to be mutable. There are so many different ways they can attack on offense and defense that they have scheme superiority over most teams. This is a trait no other team has in the playoffs, and it will serve them well.

Loser: Officiating

I’m sick and tired of the NFL being one of the richest sports leagues in the world and still having such woeful levels of officiating. The Bills were absolutely robbed on the Ja’Quan McMillian interception in overtime, which showed that even the people controlling the game have absolutely no idea what a catch is.

This was supposed to be the revamped, new, improved officiating system that allowed New York to interject into key plays to ensure mistakes like the one in overtime didn’t happen. Instead the play completely altered the outcome of the game, and sent the wrong team to the AFC Championship.

I loved that Sean McDermott showed some fight in his post game press conference. This idea that the NFL is allowed to trot out crap refereeing and then never have them questioned is a joke.

Winner: Chaos

The most random NFL season in the modern era is also giving us the most unpredictable playoffs imaginable. It’s certainly feeling like we’re hurtling towards a Seahawks vs. Patriots Super Bowl, which nobody had on their bingo card to start the season.

Obviously the Rams still have a shot, we don’t need to write them off quite yet — but it’s tough to see how the Broncos will be able to move on without Bo Nix. Of course, as this season has taught us, the second you believe in something it’s going to be shattered.