C.J. Stroud and the Houston Texans came crashing down to earth on Thursday night.
On a dreary evening in East Rutherford, New Jersey, under the Halloween moon, Stroud and the offense put up an abysmal performance, falling to Aaron Rodgers and the New York Jets, 21-13.
Against a Jets team which has lurched from one disaster to the next this season, Stroud finished the game 11/30 for 191 yards, no touchdowns and was sacked eight times as Gang Green ended a five-game losing streak.
Without his top two receivers in Nico Collins, who was placed on Injured Reserve with a strained hamstring and now Stefon Diggs, who is out for the season with a torn ACL, Stroud has had to dress up and play Superman.
Although he has fallen short of his Offensive Rookie of the Year highs of 2023, and MVP-caliber play in the early weeks of the season.
Along with the offensive line, who looked like they dressed up as five turnstiles for Halloween, it was a nightmare at MetLife Stadium for the Texans.
Houston now sits at 6-3, still atop a weak AFC South, but concerns have now bubbled to the surface, after having lost two out of their last three.
In those losses, Stroud has been downright bad.
Outside of Tank Dell stepping up in the passing game, the rushing attack, led by Joe Mixon, is the lone consistent bright spot on the offense at the moment.
Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe and Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson expressed their concerns on their podcast, Nightcap.
Specifically addressing how the offense needs to adapt without their top receivers.
“You got to be a little bit more creative to help your quarterback out,” Johnson said. “It shouldn’t look like that.
“The C.J. Stroud we saw last year, it shouldn’t regress to this point and we shouldn’t be able to use injuries for it.
“So what the offensive coordinator has to do, he has to manipulate the offense so C.J. Stroud can still be efficient. You got to change some things up.
“If your personnel is different on the outside at the receiver position, then you have to do something different.
“You got to play to their strengths, on what they do well. Don’t try to run the same offense when you don’t have a Nico Collins out there, and you don’t have a Stefon Diggs.
“You got to change some s— up.”
Sharpe put it bluntly.
“C.J. hasn’t been playing well, Ocho. There’s no way around it,” he said. “And the offensive line is getting killed.”
The sky isn’t falling in Houston, yet, but a team with legitimate Super Bowl aspirations shouldn’t be dropping games to a struggling Jets team.
The injury bug has bitten the Texans hard, but it’s on Stroud to find a way to adapt and get them back on track.
As Sharpe and Johnson both noted, injuries aren’t an excuse.
Collins will be back soon, Dell has stepped up and Mixon has carried the load, but ultimately if the Texans want to be the ones hoisting the Vince Lombardi Trophy at the end of the season, it’s going to come down to Stroud.
There is more than enough time to right the ship, but whether or not the franchise quarterback finds his Superman cape, or continues to cosplay as JaMarcus Russell, remains to be seen.
talkSPORT is your home of the NFL on UK radio, join us on talkSPORT2 from 6pm on Sunday for Week 9 and catch up on all the latest via our dedicated NFL YouTube channel
