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DJ Bien-Aime, ESPN
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — On a night when he was sacked a career-high eight times, quarterback C.J. Stroud said he was “embarrassed” after the Houston Texans‘ 21-13 loss to the New York Jets.
Stroud had a Thursday night he would prefer to forget, completing a career-worst 36% of his passes for 191 yards with no touchdowns or interceptions.
“To come out here on a prime-time game and get embarrassed, that is never fun,” Stroud said. “We have to be better in a lot of areas, and it starts with me. There’s plays I got to make, throws I got to make. I point the finger at me and realize I got to be better as a football player. If we want to win, this is not the recipe for it. We got to learn how to dominate.
“This is definitely a great wake-up call for us to tighten up the ship.”
Stroud also took 11 quarterback hits and was pressured on 46.7% of his dropbacks. That has been a season-long trend. Stroud has been sacked 30 times this season, second most in the NFL behind Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson, who was sacked 33 times before sustaining a season-ending Achilles tear in Week 7.
Texans coach DeMeco Ryans has preached all season the Texans must improve their pass protection, but the issues have lingered.
“We give up eight sacks, and every dropback and pass situation looks like we’re in scramble mode, so it’s just not good enough,” Ryans said. “We can’t operate on time, and we got to get that fixed. Anytime you get sacked that many times, it’s not good enough. Don’t want a quarterback getting hit as many hits as he took. … We got to adjust.”
Stroud admitted that it was “not easy” to operate under duress Thursday night. He was 5-for-12 passing for 67 yards under pressure but characterized some of it as self-inflicted wounds.
“One thing I can do is just get the ball out faster,” Stroud said. “When something’s open, I got to be able to hit it, because there’s times where I sit back there and I’m thinking too much. I got to be able to get it out, get it to No. 1 if No. 1 is there, No. 2 if No. 2 is there, get through my progressions. So it’s not just on them. It’s on me as well.”
Stroud’s time to throw was 3.63 seconds against the Jets, which was the highest of his career. On average, the pressure was reaching him in 2.87 seconds on Thursday night, according to Next Gen Stats, and he scrambled on a few of those plays to keep it alive.
The struggles allowed the Jets, who didn’t score a touchdown until early in the third quarter, to surge with 21 second-half points. Two of the sacks the Texans gave up were costly. One sack in the first quarter, with the Texans on the Jets’ 11-yard line, caused a Stroud fumble. Another sack late in the second quarter, on the Jets’ 34-yard line, pushed the Texans four yards back, forcing Ka’imi Fairbairn into a 56-yard field goal attempt, which he missed.
“We got to take what we’re doing at practice and apply it to the field,” right tackle Tytus Howard said. “We’re not doing it right now. We started off early in the game letting the quarterback get too much. It trickled down and made it start slow for us. That’s been our problem. We got to fix it.”
By contrast, the Texans’ run blocking was effective again. The team rushed for 187 yards, including 106 from running back Joe Mixon, who posted his fifth 100-yard rushing game. It’s the third time this season the Texans have gone over 180 yards on the ground.
Pass protection has been a different story this season.
The Texans hope to fix their woes by next week when they host the Detroit Lions on “Sunday Night Football.”