Why C.J. Stroud and a surging Texans pass game can still make a playoff run amid slow start

The Texans’ defense has been more or less average this season. They’ve faced a litany of top-end quarterbacks, a byproduct of life in the AFC, and the yielding of big plays by their young and talented defensive back room has included a surprisingly large number moments of losing in contested-catch situations. Even when performing well down-to-down, like holding Joe Burrow to his second-lowest success rate in a game in his career in their week 2 matchup against the Bengals, Derek Stingley Jr. and Kamari Lassiter just couldn’t make plays when it mattered the most. Add on linebacker injuries, and the defense that many anticipated to be a true needle-moving unit felt much more mortal through the first month of the season. Will Anderson Jr. is still playing like a star and the deserved frontrunner for Defensive Player of the Year, but offenses and top-end quarterbacks were still finding answers against a defense that’s usually suffocating.

On the offensive side of the ball, perhaps more predictably, the Texans’ run game has continued to be lackluster. The unit ranks 25th in rushing success rate on running back runs, with a whopping 29.4% of their running back runs going for a successful gain on early downs. And that ranking is actually an improvement over where the Texans’ run game was the first three seasons of Stroud’s career, where they ranked 31st. 

The Texans still face plenty of third and longs this season, averaging 7.1 yards on third down, but again, it’s still an improvement over their 7.4 average over the previous three seasons, which ranked 30th over that time period (7.1 ranks 17th, which isn’t bad when you were at the bottom of the barrel before!).

What’s behind Houston’s passing surge?

What is different this year in Houston is the aerial assault that feels more like the Run N’ Shoot days when Warren Moon was playing with the Oilers. The Texans are chucking it in Nick Caley’s second season as offensive coordinator, ranking 26th in designed run rate on early downs this season, with their designed run rate dropping from 45.9% from 2023-2025, which ranked 14th, to 37% this year. 

The Texans are using condensed formations at a 40.2% rate this season, per NextGenStats, a drop from 49.6% last year and a far cry from 2024 when the Texans used condensed formations at a 56.6% rate in Bobby Slowik’s last season as offensive coordinator.

It’s more than just formation usage and leaning into the pass. Stroud has been simply excelling with a more spaced-out offense that lets him quickly diagnose defenses. Caley is asking Stroud to constantly drop back, be right, and to find the correct answers, and Stroud is happily obliging. 

Stroud currently ranks fifth in dropback success rate this season and sixth in explosive pass rate. He is operating quickly and pushing the ball over and over to his pass-catchers. Stroud ranks first in the NFL in passes between the numbers and first in air yards relative to the sticks (i.e. how far in front or past the first down marker the quarterback is throwing.) Stroud’s average air yards to the sticks mark is at 1.2, over a yard higher than his career average of -0.2, and even higher than the league average this season of -0.6. If you just look success rate on passes thrown, so removing sacks and scrambles, Stroud ranks second this season, behind only Jared Goff. 

He’s basically filled in the area between the hashes with dots on his target chart this season.

Stroud isn’t just aimlessly chucking throws down the field. He has been aggressive but methodical and making quick decisions. These big throws down the field aren’t with play-action guardrails and in a paint-by-numbers scheme. Stroud is asked to dropback and find his answer over and over again, and when he gets to do so, his numbers still stay among the league’s best. Even with the Texans’ iffy offensive line, Stroud has been hit or sacked on only 11.4% of his dropbacks this season, a mark that ranks third in the NFL. He hasn’t taken a single sack this year against the blitz and ranks first in SUPLEX (success rate plus explosive play rate) among all NFL quarterbacks against the blitz while also getting hit or sacked at the lowest rate as well.

I highlight Stroud’s play against the blitz because that’s where you can really see how quickly Stroud is seeing the game right now. He is not surprised when he is hot (meaning when there is an unblocked pass rusher) and has been finding answer after answer.

And it’s not just successful plays that are the result of Stroud’s decision making, his sound process is leading to explosive plays and touchdowns, too. Here he is easily finding Foster Moreau against a Jaguars blitz that led to a wide open touchdown. Again, not surprised he is hot because he is so in-tune with what he is seeing.

Stroud is more of a solid than outstanding athlete who wants to do his damage from the pocket, but even when he is sacked or tucks it to scramble, he is being more decisive in how he gives, and receives, damage. Stroud has done a much better job of stepping up into the teeth of the pass rush rather than drifting back while trying to find a throw, like someone playing “Madden” and holding the joystick back because physics in video games don’t matter as much.

Stroud’s sack rate is 6% this season, right around league average but a slight improvement from his career rate of 7.2%. What has stood out on those sacks, however, is how he has mitigated damage when he has taken them. His yards lost per sack has dropped from 8.2, which was dead last among qualifying quarterbacks over his first three seasons, to a much more palatable 6.6, ranking 19th between Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow.

How Texans are utilizing a diverse group of weapons

The Texans have also boosted their personnel around Stroud and ace wide receiver Nico Collins. Dalton Schultz is a fine auxiliary option in any passing attack, but the Texans have needed more to bolster their pass-catching group. They traded for Stroud’s former Ohio State teammate Marvin Harrison Jr., a buy-low deal (well, kind of, given the second-round draft capital they shipped out in the deal) and increased second-year wide receiver Jaylin Noel’s playing time. And I can see the vision and the synergy that these pass-catchers’ skill sets can have, especially in an offense that is turning up the passing dial.

I don’t use the “ace” term lightly when talking about Nico Collins, he’s one of the few skill players in the NFL right now with true gravity because of his ability to win as an outside, on-ball “X” wide receiver. Collins can win vertically and against press and has the ability to truly win on a full route tree at all three levels, even without any help from motion or formation. 

Here’s a chart from before the season with where Collins ranks among qualifying wide receivers in terms of touches that went for successful and explosive plays since 2023. I even added the arrows to help find him.

When a passing attack has a wide receiver like that, it’s not so much that teams have to find another dominant wide receiver that can do the same thing, but players with complementary skill sets that can fill in the rest of the routes that feature that star player.

That’s where Harrison and Noel come in. Harrison, who has had a lackluster start to his career, can now be used as a secondary pass-catcher who plays as a “Z,” which allows him to be used more creatively and put in motion and in tandem with other players rather than being asked to win from static, on-ball alignments. Noel, a player who has done his best work from the slot both at Iowa State and now in the pros, can stay in that role and now doesn’t have to kick outside. Noel, deservedly, started to get more run in recent weeks. It’s something I’ve been calling for from this offense for a while now, because even his limited play time has shown that he can make an impact with more snaps and touches. Noel’s underlying numbers have also been excellent this season, partly because he has been more of a role player so far, with only 172 snaps, but it’s hard to ignore someone who’s delivering every time the football go his way. Among 87 wide receivers with 100 or more routes this season, Noel ranks 10th in yards per route run (2.53), 24th in first downs per route (9.1%), and 15th in explosive receptions per route (5.3%). His 15.9 yards per target leads all qualifying wide receivers.

Noel has aligned in the slot on 69.8% of his snaps, but that’s totally fine given the Texans’ current ecosystem now that Harrison is wearing steel blue and battle red. And Noel is even a good blocker, too!

Even other skill players, like Xavier Hutchinson, can now be tasked as a dirty work role player who can come in when needed, rather than a more featured role that might be too big of an ask for his ability. And the Texans even have an interesting group of tight ends, including Schultz, along with the potential return of injured receiver Tank Dell. Everyone is starting to slot into roles that make sense for their skill sets, and Stroud is the triggerman and engine that makes it all go. That’s how Houston can rank top 10 in the alphabet soup of metrics (DVOA, EPA) on offense despite running for 3.6 yards a pop.

While the run game has still been mediocre at best, there has been signs of life with an increased use of non-zone runs, like gap scheme (which features pullers) and duo runs. Those plays not only fit their offensive line’s size and skill set but also the formations the Texans are starting to lean into that feature more wide receivers who are truly wide as opposed to being used as quasi-tight ends, like we’ve seen more and more from offenses today.

The Texans are also packaging those spread runs as RPOs, run-pass options that feature actual downfield routes like glances, out routes, and hitches (as opposed to more horizontal-attacking bubbles and flats), which take advantage of safeties in the box and off-ball defenders keying in on pullers. Those concepts have seen an uptick over the past few weeks.

This is another way to lean into Stroud’s decision-making while also alleviating pressure on the running game, with the added benefit of providing more verticality to this offense even when they’re just attempting to run the ball.

Yes, the Texans sit at 2-4. But they’ve rattled off two wins in a row and they’ve mainly stayed in games because of Stroud’s sharp brain and strong arm (his flat-footed hook shot throws that he can make truly break my brain sometimes with how he physically does it). Head coach DeMeco Ryans has taken over defensive play-calling, perhaps peeking at that future schedule like I have. The Texans will face the Giants at home with J.J. McCarthy making his first start for Big Blue, followed by a bye week. Then Houston will face the tragedy that is the Los Angeles Chargers, the Browns, and the Colts. Nothing is a given in the NFL, but those are all very winnable games and NextGenStats still gives the Texans a 40% chance to make the playoffs. I do think the Texans’ defense will rebound to something at the least above average, if not firmly good, for the rest of the season. When paired with a passing attack that’s been stacking up among the league’s best, and might get even better with further ironing out of roles, the Texans have a chance to start making a run.

Even with the questions that remain for the Texans, I do think one preseason question has been firmly answered for the Texans, like Teddy KGB said: pay that man his money.