The Houston Texans are struggling right now. They’re entering their worst form of the season at, arguably, the worst time. They are 9-7 after a 31-2 loss on Christmas Day to the Baltimore Ravens. On Saturday, they took a loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.

While playing three games in the past 11 days, the Texans have continued to slip and are just in bad form entering the playoffs. Fortunately, as they improved to 9-5 three games ago, they locked up the AFC South division title for the second straight season.

After posting a 10-7 record a season ago, the Texans made a handful of moves to improve mightily on their roster. Injuries and lack of huge jumps this season have held them back, though. At every turn this season, the Texans have been without key players.

The Texans, assuming a Week 18 win, will finish 10-7 again with no on-paper improvement. With that, C.J. Stroud is seemingly performing worse than he did in his rookie campaign, which was flat-out electric.

After the loss to the Ravens, Stroud addressed the differences from his rookie season to his sophomore season as he’s seemingly in a slump.

“You tell me. You know, I mean, I think I’ve tried to approach the game the same way I did and I think I’m seeing it better than I ever have,” Stroud explained. “Just a little banged up so not really making plays. That’s a terrible excuse. But really just not making plays. That’s really the difference between last year and this year for me. Just not making enough plays.

“There are times where the plays are to be made and there are guys open and I got to find a way to make the play work, do something just that I’m capable of doing, you know, winning us a football game. That’s really up to me to lead our team in those times where guys are open, and ultimately it’s just me making plays. That’s really how I look at the difference between this year and last year, which can be fixed.”

For Stroud to explain that he’s seeing the game better than he did last season should be encouraging. The Texans have had to battle plenty of injuries, yet they’ve somehow found a way to win the division and get into the postseason. Stroud is still a star and could be set up for a big leap in year three to build off the woes this season.

Stroud seeing the game better than he did during his stellar rookie campaign combined with a season of struggle should fuel him to take the next step as a player.