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Preseason - TEXANS @ New England

Texansballer74 said:
So the narrative is going to be Stroud struggled and not that make shift oline huh. Gotta love some Texans fans
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First play was a nice sideline pass to Nico Collins for 8 yards. Then they ran twice and picked up a first down. Then the New England defensive tackle ran through virtually untouched for a 15 yard sack making it 2nd and 25. It was all downhill from there although CJ did have another nice completion.
 
Number19 said:
Although Stroud only had 2 series, he played all of the first quarter except the last 1:52. So Mills had only slightly more time than Stroud, but had 4 series, playing behind the same "make shift" OL.
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Hard to bounce back from 2nd and 25 on the second series of the first possession. Second-year guy (#76) from LSU completely whiffed. That's not on CJ.
 
Buckeye Homer said:
I too thought that perhaps Dell was supposed to work his way back to CJ.
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I think Dell ran his route too deep.

If it's a comebacker, he needed to really come back.
If it's a ten-yard out, he needed to make his cut earlier.

Each team taught their QB/WR to adjust differently when they see certain coverage.
We don't know what they're supposed to do here, but they're definitely not on the same page.
The pass and the receiver were not in the same zip code.
 
76Texan said:
I think Dell ran his route too deep.
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Exactly right.

The sack on first down making it 2nd & 25 really robbed CJ of the opportunity to gain more experience. It was probably smart of the coaches to remove CJ. They can try again later but hopefully next time they'll plan on providing some blocking.
 
Mangler said:
I think he knew he messed up as soon as the ball left his hand.
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If he was staring down the receiver the whole time, he would have seen the safety.

What could be more telling is that CJ needs to have a better read presnap.
The safety was cheating up from Cover 2.
That's a good sign that he and the CB were in inverted-Cover 2 (in which the CB plays deep and the safety comes up like he did).
It's not something you see in college football.
CJ will have to learn from it.
 
Buckeye Homer said:
Exactly right.

The sack on first down making it 2nd & 25 really robbed CJ of the opportunity to gain more experience. It was probably smart of the coaches to remove CJ. They can try again later but hopefully next time they'll plan on providing some blocking.
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They want some coaching opportunity.
 
The Patriots were also manufacturing pressure without much difficulty, especially against a newly vulnerable and quickly-collapsing right side of the line. The Texans recently lost right tackle Tytus Howard for a little more than a month with a broken hand. More than half of Stroud’s drop-backs were under duress.

This is a long way of saying that there are far easier circumstances by which to make your first appearance as the possible franchise quarterback of a team still very much in its growth stage. Stroud went 2-of-4 for 13 yards and an interception. He was sacked once for a loss of 15 yards. His passer rating was 17.7.

Anecdotally, every time he dropped back, there seemed to be a bit of a tug-of-war between the decision his brain wanted to make and the corresponding motion executed by his body. Even on his first pass, a completion to Nico Collins just in front of the Patriots’ sideline, there was a (relative) eternity between the moment Collins flashed open and could have been thrown open while his defender (Gonzalez) had his back turned, and the time when Stroud released the ball.


On the interception by Mills a few plays later, we saw the same thing. A broader view of the field showed what looked like the moment Stroud wanted to pull the trigger and, indeed, there was a large swath of throwable space he could have led receiver Tank Dell into. Instead, he paused long enough for Mills to jump the route. He waited roughly three seconds per drop-back, which would put him among the slowest quarterback release times last year in the NFL (again, with a very small sample size).

What can we extrapolate from something like this? Not much. The Texans didn’t keep him in long which shows some degree of confidence (if they thought he needed more work or weren’t worried about a senseless preseason injury with Davis Mills available for starter’s snaps). There are a lot of rookies who look absolutely awful in their preseason debut, and while Stroud played poorly, he did compose himself to complete another pass despite stumbling off a bootleg.
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Buckeye Homer said:
Exactly right.

The sack on first down making it 2nd & 25 really robbed CJ of the opportunity to gain more experience. It was probably smart of the coaches to remove CJ. They can try again later but hopefully next time they'll plan on providing some blocking.
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And it became 3rd and 21.
If that was 3rd and 8 or 3rd and 10, that play would have been very different.
In fact, by playing inverted cover 2 in a preseason game, against a rookie QB, is really not fair.
(Teams aren't supposed to run exotic schemes).
Though it could be a favor to CJ, so that he can learn from it.
 
76Texan said:
And it became 3rd and 21.
If that was 3rd and 8 or 3rd and 10, that play would have been very different.
In fact, by playing inverted cover 2 in a preseason game, against a rookie QB, is really not fair.
(Teams aren't supposed to run exotic schemes).
Though it could be a favor to CJ, so that he can learn from it.
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I'm glad they gave him a different look, part of the learning experience.
 
76Texan said:
These writers often write from their emotion.

On the pass to Collins, the ball left CJ's hand at 14:58 or shortly after he went through his progression. There were 3 targets on that side.
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Most of the talking heads have never played a down of organized football in their LIVES. I'm thankful to be able to listen to a former Ohio State coach who does a podcast where he breaks down games and he also is good at excoriating journalists who publish bad takes.
 
Texansballer74 said:
Here we go with the Mills only fans. Lol yeah joker he played behind the same make shift oline. But by then the Patriots pulled most of their starting defense out. I guess you didn’t see that huh
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The Patriots were hurting mostly on the Offensive line.
Their defense wasn't.
And far less when compared to us not playing several starters on the Oline.

CJ was actually in a disadvantage here as his makeshift line was going against a better defensive front.

Like I said, I believe the Texas have more depth this year so by the time Mills came in, he was with roughly the same caliber of an Oline while the Pats's defensive front was lacking in depth.
 
Buckeye Homer said:
Most of the talking heads have never played a down of organized football in their LIVES. I'm thankful to be able to listen to a former Ohio State coach who does a podcast where he breaks down games and he also is good at excoriating journalists who publish bad takes.
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Clint Stoerner is a former NFL QB, having played with the Cowboys and Dolphins.
 
Texansballer74 said:
Here we go with the Mills only fans. Lol yeah joker he played behind the same make shift oline. But by then the Patriots pulled most of their starting defense out. I guess you didn’t see that huh
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I don't want Mills starting, but Stroud looked like a rookie. Hopefully he improves.
 
Buckeye Homer said:
I'm sure CJ will learn a lot standing on the sideline.
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Nope, he needs to see coverages he's never seen before and get use to the speed of an NFL game. He's the Texans QB and I think they have a really good defense this year. Now is the time to get him experience.

BTW, he played with a better ol, receivers at OSU than he played with tonight and he needs to get used to his team not having way more talent than the team he plays against in the NFL.
 
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