Battle Red Blog
I never thought I would be making a post like this! After the Houston Texans’ heartbreaking first half performance against the New England Patriots in the divisional round yesterday, many across the country and across the internet used halftime to propose one major second-half adjustment: benching QB CJ Stroud for backup Davis Mills. You know things aren’t go well with the starter if this is happening in the middle of a playoff game, but this wasn’t really on overreaction by many; Entering halftime, Stroud had already thrown 4 interceptions, an interception returned for a touchdown, and missed multiple completions because of overthrowing or underthrowing his receivers. Despite all of that, Houston entered halftime only down 11 points and still very much alive in the game, so many spectators both at home and on ESPN’s halftime show saw that break as the opportunity to move away from Stroud and towards Mills:
Ultimately, Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans elected to stay with Stroud in the second half, where he would perform moderately better, but not well enough to give Houston a chance at a comeback in the fourth quarter.
Ryans was asked about his decision at the postgame press conference to keep Stroud in, stating,
“CJ [Stroud] is our guy. I believe…he can comeback out in the second half, and flip it. I believe that he can play better, and he did that in the second half, he did play better. We had some positive drives there in the second half…as I always tell our guys at halftime, it really-it doesn’t matter what happened in the first half. We have to flush it, remove it, and you just have to go out and finish the right way. And, I tell you, we’ve been there before, we’ve been in situations much more dire than this and we were able to bounce back so, you know in my mind, there was never a doubt in my mind that we wouldn’t be able to overcome it.” – DeMeco Ryans
You almost wonder when Ryans states “…we’ve been in situations much more dire than this and we were able to bounce back…” if he was reminiscing on the miraculous fourth-quarter comeback the Texans had against the Jaguars…when Davis Mills was the starter…
Regardless, Ryans clearly believed in Stroud as the leader who could get the Texans back on track, but his poor accuracy continued into the second half, where it ultimately doomed the team to a slow death in the fourth quarter. So, should the Texans have benched CJ Stroud? Well, looking purely at the statline, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that Stroud had worn out his welcome. But, does Davis Mills give Houston a better chance at making a comeback? Well let’s look at both player’s stat lines for the 2025 regular season. I’ll split Stroud’s stats between the time before he suffered a concussion in week 9 against the Denver Broncos and after so we can determine how he performed after...
