Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud had an all-time rookie season in 2023. Now, Houston’s passing game has fallen into disrepair. Can it be fixed for the postseason?
In 2023, Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud was the runaway Offensive Rookie of the Year after one of the best first-year quarterback seasons in recent memory. The second overall pick from Ohio State completed 354 of 553 passes (64.0%) for 4,557 yards (8.2 yards per attempt), 26 touchdowns, five interceptions, and a passer rating of 101.2. Stroud was unusually calm and controlled against NFL defenses pretty much from the word go, and it appeared for all the world that the Texans had things sewn up at the game’s most important position. They made it all the way to the divisional round of the playoffs one season after a 3-13-1 record in 2022 put them in position for the second overall pick in the first place.
Things have not gone as expected in Stroud’s sophomore campaign. In the 2024 regular season, he completed 336 of 532 passes (63.2%) for 3,727 yards (7.0 yards per attempt), 20 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, and a passer rating of 87.0. Stroud has not looked as decisive for multiple reasons, the calm is gone, second-year offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik is taking all kinds of slings and arrows in the court of public opinion after a 2023 in which he became a Certified Genius, and this Texans passing game is not as feared as it was last season.
Houston’s wild-card opponent, the Los Angeles Chargers, present a horrible get-well defense against which to figure it all out. Under first-year coordinator Jesse Minter, the Chargers have allowed opposing quarterbacks to complete 58.9% of their passes for 5.8 yards per play, 24 touchdowns but also 12 interceptions, an EPA of -0.11 which is fifth-lowest in the NFL, and a passer rating of 89.6.
So. it will be on Stroud, Slowik, and Stroud’s targets to get it together in a big hurry if they’re to avoid one-and-done status. We know that things have not been the same for Stroud and the passing game this season. Let’s get into what the problems have been, and how they can be… if not fixed, at least managed enough to avoid postseason disaster.
Pressure is a problem, for more reasons than one
Yes, Stroud has been negatively impacted by the dire status of Houston’s offensive line in 2024. He had been under pressure on 235 of his dropbacks this season, and Stroud’s 37.8% dropback pressure rate ties him for fifth-highest in the NFL with Lamar Jackson. Stroud has completed 164 of 235 passes under pressure for 994 yards five touchdowns, two interceptions, and a passer rating of 71.0.
So, Stroud has been pressured a lot this season behind a like that has had Houston’s coaches moving the deck chairs more often than they would prefer, but it’s not as if he’s facing pressure at an epic rate, or performing historically miserably when pressure does happen.
Where the pressure issues tend to show up as or more often is the ways in which Houston’s skill players are deployed. In 2023, the Texans put two tight ends on the field just 65 times, including the playoffs. In 2024 already, that number has nearly tripled to 155. Part of that has to do with receiver injuries – Nico Collins missed five games midseason with a hamstring injury, and Tank Dell was lost for the rest of the season in December after a brutal play against the Kansas City Chiefs in which he suffered a torn ACL and dislocated kneecap.
But beyond that, its clear that Slowik is putting more people in protection who would ideally be running routes. And whether these potential Stroud targets are chipping enemy defenders to release into their routes, or they’re simply taken out of the play to block all the way through, such constraints obviously limit what the Texans can do with their route combinations.
This can also create a vicious cycle in which receivers who would otherwise be available to run hot routes to give Stroud options against pressure aren’t there to provide that relief, because they’re adding to the pass protection. Stroud has fewer hot routes, he has to stay active longer, and bad things can happen from there when your guys can’t pass-protect.
On this interception against the Baltimore Ravens in Week 17, it was third-and-3 from the Houston 37-yard line with 14:13 left in the third quarter. This time, the Texans were in 11 personnel with Dalton Schultz as the only tight end, but running back Dare Ogunbowale had to stay in to block linebacker Roquan Smith as the blitzer up the middle.
When edge-rushers Chris Board and Kyle Van Noy both dropped into coverage, the pressure component was still amplified because Smith got through the block, but Stroud also had no easy answers to his front side. Instead, he rolled to his right away from Smith as Baltimore super-safety Kyle Hamilton covered Smith’s vacant area across the field in Cover-2, and threw late to receiver Xavier Hutchinson for a Hamilton interception. It also looked like Stroud wanted Hutchinson to bend his route in more sharply, but that’s another matter.
The Texans are also less diverse with their route combinations this season, which makes sense – when you are forced to have more receivers, tight ends, and running backs block, you will not have the same number of targets to paint all those lovely pictures. Instead, you wind up with a lot of iso routes that good defenses can match and eliminate.
Stroud’s interception against the Chiefs in Week 16 was another negative example of this idea. It was third-and-12 from the Houston 43-yard line with 13:04 left in the first quarter. The Chiefs were in 2-Man coverage – man with two deep safeties – and the idea was for Collins and Dell to run matching benders to either side. Problem was, there was nobody else to take those routes away from Kansas City’s defense, and it played right into what the Chiefs were doing. Schultz, Ogunbowale, and receiver Robert Woods all stayed in to help protect.
The timing is off too often
In 2023, Stroud might have been the NFL’s most efficient deep passer. On throws of 20 or more air yards, he completed 38 of 65 passes of 20 or more air yards for 1,289 yards, nine touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 142.5. This season on deep throws, Stroud has completed 20 of 62 deep passes for 696 yards, four touchdowns, six interceptions, and a passer rating of 57.7.
One of the issues here, which really wasn’t a problem in Stroud’s rookie season, is that he’s waiting too long to turn the ball loose, and this happens even when he has a clean pocket, and the routes are clearly defined.
The reasons for these internal hesitations are unknown, but as we have said, the Chargers are a rotten defense to have this problem against. As Slowik said on Wednesday, the Chargers throw the entire kitchen at your quarterback – forget about the sink.
“That style of… a lot of split safety hold, and they usually try to disguise it and make it really hard for the quarterback,” Slowik said. “When they do show middle-field closed, they usually wind up being sort of split-safety post snap. They do a really good job of making it to where you can’t get a bead on what they are doing before the ball snaps. Then, they mix that in with pressure and a lot of offsets. They do a really good job of keeping things in front of them and making sure they don’t give up explosives. Our job is to find a way to still be able to get those while still staying on track. I know they are top five in [fewest] explosives given up. That is one of the good things they do.”
Especially when your quarterback isn’t in time with the ideal version of the routes, such defenses can clamp down quickly and create all kinds of unfortunate snowballs.
How can the Texans fix this?
Based on the attendant issues with this passing game, it would stand to reason that Slowik should be designing more short to intermediate concepts with more challenging route concepts that allow Stroud to get the ball out more quickly while mitigating the obvious protection issues. And on throws from 10-19 air yards this season, Stroud has still thrived — that’s where he’s completed 80 of 127 passes for 1,303 yards, eight touchdowns, two interceptions, and a passer rating of 111.8.
And as good as this Chargers defense has been, they do have a tendency to give up yards after the catch on intermediate passes — a league high 349 yards after the catch allowed on throws of 10-19 air yards. This is where the Texans are prone to more advantageous route combinations, and no coincidence, it’s where Stroud is more active when it comes to turning the ball loose in the timing of the target route. In addition, the Chargers have a pressure rate of 27.5% against intermediate passes, which is fourth-lowest in the league.
The Texans can’t fix Tank Dell’s injuries overnight, and they can’t do much about their offensive line right now — though moving right tackle Tytus Howard to left guard has given Stroud what he calls a “comfort blanket.” All they can do is to take what they have, maximize the attributes that Stroud still has (he didn’t just become some kind of horrid quarterback overnight), and minimize the liabilities both in quarterback and in passing game that have bedeviled the team all season long.
That’s Job One for any offense, and the Texans have no more time to mess around. Any deviation from improvements in these areas will likely end their postseason very shortly after it begins.
