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DJ Bien-Aime, ESPN
HOUSTON — It started in April, before C.J. Stroud was the quarterback of the Houston Texans.
He was sitting at a table eating lunch at the team’s facility during a pre-draft visit when he was joined by safety Jalen Pitre. Stroud was familiar with Pitre and held his play in high regard.
The two exchanged pleasantries, but then it happened.
“He started talking trash,” Stroud told ESPN of the interaction with a laugh. “I’m like, ‘Man, I’m not backing down against nothing. I respect you, but that doesn’t mean I’m backing down. If I come here, I’ma be on your [head].'”
Pitre saw leadership and passion in Stroud, and he could tell the Ohio State star wanted to be in Houston. Later that month, it became official when the Texans drafted Stroud No. 2 overall.
The lunchroom conversation was the start of Stroud’s bond with his future team, an organization that had won 11 games total the past three seasons. The Texans hope Stroud is the catalyst for a winning culture. The results have been good so far, as Houston (3-3) has matched its win total from 2022 heading into its Week 7 bye. Stroud, who’s in the Offensive Rookie of the Year conversation, is leading the way, but it couldn’t come without buy-in from his teammates.
“You’re the youngest guy in the room. It’s hard to step up and talk to men who are older than you, but as I told C.J., ‘Everyone here, they respect you,’ and they look up to him because they see, first and foremost, the type of player that he is,” Texans coach DeMeco Ryans said.
“They see the plays that he is able to make. And when they see what he can do, guys want to play for him.”
THE CLOCK READ 6:56 in the fourth quarter as the Texans were trailing 18-12 on the road in Week 5 against the Atlanta Falcons. This was Stroud’s first opportunity to lead a potential game-winning drive.
Before the offense took a snap, right tackle Tytus Howard remembers Stroud telling the unit, “We are going to go down and score.”
It had been years since left tackle Laremy Tunsil felt that level of confidence among his teammates on the field. And it was because of Stroud. On the 11th play of the drive, Stroud cashed in on his declaration, firing a dart to tight end Dalton Schultz on third-and-9 for an 18-yard touchdown with 1:49 seconds remaining.
His teammates never doubted him in the moment.
“[That confidence] means everything. I’ve played a lot of football in my life, and I think that has paid dividends for me coming into these harsh environments and these situations. I’ve played in this stadium before in critical situations,” Stroud said after the game. “I think God put a certain dog in me that I don’t flinch. That really has a testament to do with the guys around me.”
The lead was spoiled when Falcons kicker Younghoe Koo nailed the game-winning field goal as time expired on the ensuing drive, but the Texans’ belief in Stroud was solidified.
In that game, Stroud also broke the record for most passes thrown without an interception (176) to start a career — previously held by Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott. He extended the streak into Week 6 before the New Orleans Saints ended it at 191.
But Stroud hasn’t just been good for a rookie. He’s fourth in passing yards (1,660), and his 213 pass attempts is the most among quarterbacks with one interception — no one with at least 100 pass attempts has thrown zero.
“I’ve seen [Stroud] grow in that regard of, as a leader, being more confident to speak up when he needs to speak, and as a rookie,” Ryans said, “that’s not always a comfortable thing to do.”
In Week 6, Stroud had his worst pro performance (going 13-for-27 for 199 yards) in the Texans’ 20-13 win. But even so, teammates appreciated him putting them in a position to win.
“It’s a quarterback-driven league,” Texans defensive end Jerry Hughes said after the game. “Once you got that guy behind the center like we have in [No. 7] — someone who can command the offense, calm under pressure and knows how to execute and not turn the ball over — when it’s time to score, he’s dropping dimes to [wide receiver] Nico [Collins] to close the door — like against Pittsburgh. Once you got a quarterback, that makes everything a lot easier. And I think with [No. 7] spinning that ball, we’re gonna be good.”
COLLINS, WHO’S HAVING a breakout season in Year 3 and has been Stroud’s top target, says there was a gravitational pull to his new quarterback as soon as they arrived to OTAs in May.
“When C.J. commanded the huddle during OTAs, he had confidence in [himself],” Collins told ESPN. “When someone walks into the building, you can tell when someone got that ‘it’ factor. He for sure got that.”
Once spring workouts concluded, Stroud wanted to learn more about his team, so he invited his offensive skill players to work out with him in Southern California. Stroud paid for the flights and hotels and got in some additional reps at UCLA with his teammates.
“I enjoy fellowship,” Stroud said. “If you can get a little getaway and be with your brothers, that’s all you need. We were staying together, eating together, like doing every little thing. So we see what guys care for. I wanted to build team bonding away from Houston, Texas, and bond with my guys.”
One lasting memory from that trip was Stroud creating a handshake with fellow rookie receiver Tank Dell, centered around a California dance called the “Squabble.” They planned to do the dance whenever the duo scored a touchdown. Neither accounted for a touchdown in Week 1, but in Week 2 against the Indianapolis Colts, Stroud threw two touchdown passes — with the second resulting in their dance.
Once the trip to California was over, Stroud had another idea for bonding.
The day before the Texans reported to training camp, Stroud hosted a bowling event. In separate group chats, he sent texts to the offensive line, tight ends, running backs and wide receivers.
The event lasted two hours, and whoever had the highest score was safe from having to do pushups as punishment.
“That [night] showed leadership because he’s trying to get guys together and build chemistry,” Tunsil said.
STROUD STILL HAD to earn his starting spot. He entered training camp in a competition with incumbent Davis Mills. The battle went into the preseason, leaving the Texans as one of the last teams to name an opening-day starter, but Ryans finally made the call after their preseason finale against the Saints.
“It’s been over the course of the entire process of OTAs, training camp preseason games, just seeing the complete product and knowing C.J.’s desire to continue to better,” Ryans said at the time.
Stroud was able to get to that point by building relationships and trust from his teammates.
During camp, the Texans were in a team hotel, and since Stroud didn’t have his new car yet, he was hoping he could catch a ride to practice. He woke up early and left his room around 5:15 a.m. in hopes of finding someone to ride to practice with — which started at 9.
As he left his room, he heard a door slam simultaneously.
It was Pitre and Stroud asked for a ride. The duo used the commute to learn more about each other and were “bonding on stuff outside of football,” like basketball and music.
“He would talk about how good he was at basketball since he played in high school,” Pitre told ESPN. “So he would ask who was the better shooter out of us two. … Then, obviously, talking about the practice coming up that day.”
Of course, like in their first interaction there was “a little bit of trash talk,” but that’s the way they bond, and Stroud has learned that’s a way to connect with competitors like Pitre.
After practices, Stroud would seek out the defensive backs he had been playing against to learn about flaws he showed that they had been able to key in on. Stroud would also use the moment to let the secondary know what he was seeing as a quarterback, according to cornerback Derek Stingley Jr.
“C.J. has also helped me,” Stingley said. “It was in between a period during practice when we would get to a certain part of the field, and he would say, ‘This is the quarterback progression. So you got to think about that and play your leverage off that.’ It’s different progressions to where he is looking. He knows his things and how to help everyone else out.”
During Stroud’s preseason debut against the New England Patriots, he was sacked by defensive tackle Daniel Ekuale, who quickly beat second-year right tackle Austin Deculus.
Deculus tried apologizing to Stroud on the sideline, but the rookie told him he was a “hell of a football player.” Deculus said that interaction meant a lot because sometimes NFL quarterbacks go off on teammates for mistakes.
“I just did it because that’s my brother,” Stroud said. “I looked at his face. I could tell he really cared. My job is to make everybody around me better and feel comfortable around me. And the more I can do that, the better because we’re all gonna go out there and be on the same page and fight for each other.”
Deculus compares Stroud to Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, his former college teammate, in terms of “leadership swag” and “poise.”
“It keeps everyone together,” Deculus said.
Part of becoming a leader is learning from the best. Stroud didn’t take a lunch conversation with future Hall of Famer Tom Brady and Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin lightly.
“On TV, you look at [star quarterbacks] and think, ‘Man, they’re just so busy. They can’t hang out with their teammates. They’re probably just locked in on what they got going,'” Stroud told ESPN. “And [Brady] was like, ‘I just never want to let my teammates down.’ He said those words exactly. I was like, ‘Man, that’s how I am.’
“I love kicking it with my boys. Those are my brothers. So it definitely hit home when he was talking about it.”
Stroud’s brotherly love approach to leadership is one of the reasons the Texans are one game behind the Jaguars in the AFC South.
“They want to protect better, you want to play better on defense, you want to play better on special teams,” Ryans said of Stroud’s leadership. “You want to do everything you can do to do your job better.
“It’s tough to play [quarterback]. But you see a young man who can make plays, and it makes guys play a little harder for him.”