With 12:32 to go in the third quarter of Sunday’s Texans-Buccaneers game, C.J. Stroud took the ball at his own 25-yard line trailing 20–10. About 27 game minutes later, he had the rookie single-game passing yards record, four more touchdown passes and possibly the most improbable late-game comeback of the season, with the Texans’ having about a 10% chance (according to ESPN’s win probability metric) of clinching the game after Tampa Bay went up by four points with 46 seconds remaining.
We did not learn anything about Stroud on Sunday that we haven’t already seen throughout his incredible rookie season, but we did see the suddenness with which he could make it happen; how quickly he can, in a difficult game against a very good defensive-minded head coach, transcend his circumstances and throw his team out of multiple deficits.
That, more than anything, should be the most haunting takeaway from watching Stroud, if your job involves slowing him down or cheering against him for the next decade. Not even Connor Stallions with two weeks of prep time and a Groucho Marx costume can stop this.
