The main word to describe C.J. Stroud? Transformative — in both reality and fantasy

Five things I care about

C.J. Stroud and DeMeco Ryans change the Texans

I try not to throw around the word “transformative” often when discussing players and coaches in the NFL. For the most part, everyone needs help and few figures across the league can alter the fortunes of an operation at such a rapid pace.

But there is no need to hold back when discussing C.J. Stroud and DeMeco Ryans, who perfectly embody the phrase. Their arrival in Houston was as transformative as it gets.

The Texans have been a completely irrelevant entity for years. This is a team that was mired in the Deshaun Watson nightmare and nearly gave complete organizational control to Jack Easterby, for seemingly no reason. They fired two one-and-done coaches in back-to-back years. It was as toxic as it gets.

Now, they enter the NFL’s postseason after yet another gorgeous showing from their franchise quarterback as the fan base oozes hope with the team under the direction of Ryans, a team legend during his days as a player. They are more than a typical “worst to first” in their division story.

There were good things about the Texans roster on the low the last few years. Nico Collins was a breakout receiver hiding in plain sight. His film has been great since he entered the leagu. The results just weren’t there because of a poisoned offensive environment and bad quarterback play. With Stroud at the helm, he’s been fully unleashed and is one of the most efficient receivers in the league.

General manager Nick Caserio got some critique during his run with the team the last few years, but quietly built a roster driven into the dirt by Bill O’Brien back to respectability. Caserio is a master of churning the 53 to add solid contributors; he just needed the right coach in place to maximize those players in fitting roles and to add some superstars. That’s what Ryans has done on defense and what Bobby Slowik, whom Ryans brought from San Francisco, did with the offense.

Stroud and Ryans are franchise-altering figures. They’ve already out-kicked any expectation for where they could take the 2023 Houston Texans. I won’t be putting any limitations on how far they can go in future seasons.

Josh Allen and chaos

Week 18’s division-winning game over the Dolphins was one of the more chaotic Josh Allen games in recent memory. There were mind-bending turnovers, one-of-one throws like the fadeaway go-route to Stefon Diggs and game-deciding scrambles late in the fourth quarter.

Allen is a unique football player who can produce some of the most electrifying and terrifying moments in football, all in a matter of minutes. He’s a joy to watch, especially as a neutral observer.

While the unbreakable wild stallion tendencies certainly can drive you nuts — his own head coach was notably furious in the halftime sideline interview — he embodies the phrase, “You can’t count him out.” The peak of that trait was on display Sunday night in the second half.

I don’t know where I stand on the Bills. Part of me thinks they’re a little too volatile to be trusted to make a playoff run. I even see them as the perfect candidate to get dragged down into the muck of a slop fest with the Steelers in the Wild Card round. Yet, when Allen is playing his best football and the playmakers around him — from Diggs to Khalil Shakir to Dalton Kincaid — are producing matchup advantages, they can take down anyone.

No team enters the postseason foray as a greater mystery than the Bills. However their journey ends, chaos will be their co-pilot. It’s a wild way to live but the high that Allen provides makes it all worth it.

The Jaguars need to take a long look in the mirror

The Week 18 loss was a fitting end for the 2023 Jacksonville Jaguars. They were outclassed and out-coached by a team they should have beaten. Missed opportunities on offense and blunders on defense sank them. That’s been the story of their season.

You can’t fumble your “make the leap season” any harder than they did. It’s time for the whole building to have a long look in the mirror.

Nothing about the Jaguars is better today than it was one year ago. Trevor Lawrence didn’t make a jump into the elite tier of quarterbacks. Lawrence is a good player — while being a victim of his own “generational prospect” hype coming into the league — but he’s a verifiably good starting quarterback. He just didn’t get better. He should have gotten better.

Injuries may indeed have played a role in Lawrence’s stagnation, but it’s far from the only explanation. The offensive design was broken from the very beginning. Receivers were put in strange roles for their skill sets and the run game was miserable all season. There seemed to be little to no ability by promoted play-caller Press Taylor to adjust.

It will be a long offseason for Jacksonville as it prepares to find answers to complex questions. Unlike last offseason, they won’t be viewed as head and shoulders above their division. On the contrary, you can argue the Texans and Colts lapped them in terms of planning and team-building. And Week 18 was a reminder you can’t count the Titans out, either (more on them later). The pressure is on to figure this thing out fast.

The Packers’ young offense

Last season, the aging Packers were not able to get past a plucky division rival to secure a Wild Card spot in the NFC playoffs. This time, destiny went in a different direction for a Packers squad suddenly loaded with intriguing young talent.

As Jordan Love spent yet another game uncorking impressive darts at a high clip, it was a reminder of just how far the 2023 Packers have come. This was not a team that was expected to make the playoffs, but if they did make a push, it was going to come on the back of a defensive turnaround after a series of Round 1 investments. That couldn’t have been further from the case. The defense is still a liability. Green Bay is headed to the postseason on the back of its offense, plain and simple.

The Packers end the regular season ranking fifth in EPA per play and eighth in success rate. This was a unit that could produce big plays and mount steady, consistent drives. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

The 2023 campaign was about developing young guys and finding out if Love could be a viable starter. Here at the end of the ride, Love is one of the most dynamic passers in the league and rookie receivers Jayden Reed and Dontayvion Wicks look like possible stars.

That is not an exaggeration — those guys have been that good.

This offense didn’t even have its best and most experienced player, Aaron Jones, available or healthy for the majority of the season. The coach of the year field is too crowded for him to get serious consideration, but Matt LaFleur absolutely crushed this season, developing all these guys and finding appropriate roles for them on the fly. The Packers’ young offense enters the playoffs as not just some cute story but a dangerous group that can put points on you in a hurry.

The Commanders get the No. 2 overall pick

Washington entered Sunday projected to pick second in the NFL Draft and left the day in the same spot. This is a massive development for the franchise’s future.

New owner Josh Harris officially fired Ron Rivera early Monday morning in an expected move. The entire building will likely be turned over as Harris builds the foundation in his image. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that the owner “hired two prominent executives — former Warriors GM Bob Myers and former Vikings GM Rick Spielman — to assist his group in searches for a new head of football operations and coach.”

It’s a new day for Washington.

Despite the moribund history of this franchise, this should be an attractive opening for any promising candidate. You have a new owner ready to spend and invest in the product and what essentially amounts to a blank slate to work with. There is some talent at the skill-position spots to work with to build a quality offensive attack in your early days and several holdover veterans hungry to help set a new culture.

The second-overall pick is more than just the cherry on top. It’s the rug that ties the whole room together, especially with this draft locked and loaded with viable quarterbacks to go at the very top.

Five things I don’t care about

The Colts miss the playoffs

The Colts enjoyed an excellent run this season and almost made it to the playoffs. They fell short in a close 23-19 loss on Saturday night to the division-rival Texans. Ultimately, the Colts just ran out of gas and finally bumped up against their ceiling after out-kicking their coverage for 17 weeks.

And yet, if I were a Colts backer, I’d be walking out of that Week 18 loss with my head held high and swirling with optimism about the team’s future.

The good feelings start with the head coach. I don’t think many coaches got more out of less this season on offense than Shane Steichen. This unit was viable all season long despite only having one difference-maker, star receiver Michael Pittman Jr., available for the full season. Their other needle-moving playmakers — rookie Josh Downs and of course, Jonathan Taylor – struggled with injuries. Still, this was a competent group that was efficient and a million times more watchable than its 2022 counterpart.

Plenty of folks will quibble about subbing Taylor out on the game-deciding fourth-down play in the fourth quarter but Steichen got the play design right. The window was wide open, but the execution on the field was lacking.

The roster is also in good shape and loaded with youth. General manager Chris Ballard was under fire coming out of 2022, but he’s coming off a nice run in the draft. Many of the big, athletic gambles he’s taken in recent years are starting to pay off, especially on defense. Best of all, the change in offensive system gave a shot in the arm to the offensive line. Credit for that can go to the coaching staff, as well, but building up front is Ballard’s foundation. Despite last season’s blip, that remains a strength of this team under his watch.

The true difference between the Texans and Colts, a pair of wonderfully rebuilt teams ahead of their timeline, was readily apparent on Saturday night: quarterback.

The winning team was playing with its transformative rookie passer, who, alongside the head coach, completely changed the course of the franchise. The losing team was not.

The Colts’ coach was left to stand alone Saturday night trying to squeeze one last drop of juice out of Gardner Minshew. A fine backup quarterback, Minshew played a lot for this team and the limitations of that reality have been easy to spot for anyone really watching them on film.

In order for the Colts to push through the ceiling they bumped up against at the close of this season, Anthony Richardson has to be the guy. Richardson closing the gap with Stroud will be the finishing touch on this otherwise fantastic, rapid rebuild. Based on what I saw in the brief moments we got of Richardson in the first month of the season, I’m encouraged he has what it takes to get there. He just needs to stay healthy and continue to progress because he flashed really high-end ability, not project traits at the start of this season. Just like the entire Colts team, everything is right at his fingertips and within his grasp.

Any Mike Vrabel speculation

Sunday morning brought some reports that the Titans’ brass and Mike Vrabel would meet after the season to decide a path forward.

Maybe Vrabel and some of the other decision-makers aren’t on the same page about the future and nobody’s happy with the overall record of the Titans. However, I can’t for the life of me imagine why this team might be considering making a move for a new head coach.

Sunday’s upset over the Jaguars was a reminder of the culture that Vrabel has instilled in Tennessee. This is a group that always fights and remains competitive no matter what. There were plenty of teams kicking around in Week 18 that had no playoff hopes and were simply mailing it in. That’s not the case in Tennessee. What we witnessed on Sunday was a group under Vrabel’s stewardship that was determined to give full effort not just to ruin the Jaguars’ season but also end an era on a high note.

It was not a secret that Week 18 was likely the final time we’ll see Ryan Tannehill and Derrick Henry in a Titans uniform. The latter especially hits home and he was given a moment to enjoy after the game was over. It was great to see.

Let’s be honest, this Titans team isn’t that talented. There are serious holes at premium positions and a handful of draft misfires by the previous GM have proven costly for Tennessee. But this isn’t the time to scrap everything and start over, they need to keep building.

Again, I don’t know all the inner workings of the Titans organization, the politics or dynamics behind the scenes. I do know there aren’t 32 people I’d rather have at the top of a coaching roster than Vrabel. He’d be the type of guy I’d bet on to get this ship back on the right track.

The scars of the 2023 Falcons

It didn’t take long for the Atlanta Falcons to make a decision on their future, as news broke that they fired former head coach Arthur Smith shortly after midnight Monday morning.

Smith’s final on-field act as the Falcons head coach was to chew out Dennis Allen over the Saints running a fake kneel-down play — against Allen’s director orders, mind you — to get Jamaal Williams his first touchdown of the season.

So Smith’s tenure as the Falcons coach ended in much the same way he operated throughout his three years on the job. Even if he had a point here about the foolishness of running a play out of victory formation, he comes off as someone focused on the wrong things and ultimately missing the point. File it down as another instance of misplaced grievance from the former head coach.

For me, the frustrating part of Smith is that he is an excellent offensive coach. He schemes up good pass-game designs and leans into the current meta of quality scoring units. But the personnel deployment, the galaxy-brained scheming and the misallocation of workload were simply too much to bear. It’ll be up to Smith to exorcise those demons in his next stop, but do not let it impact the way you view this Falcons offense going forward.

There’s a handful of good spots for an upstart offensive coach to land this cycle. The Falcons are near the top of the list.

With talented weapons in place still dripping with unrealized potential and an offensive line that, while disappointing in 2023, has some talent, there’s a lot to work with here.

Honestly, there are some similarities to the Colts situation we just covered above, except the Falcons arguably have a better foundation to build around. The right coach pushing the offense forward after his predecessor let things run stale would make all the difference. To further the analogy, Shane Steichen didn’t touch the defensive side of the ball and kept Gus Bradley around. I’d argue that the next Falcons head coach would be wise to do the same with Ryan Nielsen, who showed well in his first year on the job.

Don’t let the scars of the past hold you down. Be ready to jump back into this Falcons ecosystem if they get the head coach right and that guy can find a suitable quarterback solution.

The benefit of the doubt for the Eagles

When someone shows you who they are, believe them.

That great saying applies directly to this Eagles team. After enduring yet another embarrassing loss in Week 18 — they were underperforming even when the starters were in the game — the Eagles will limp into the playoffs after sinking down the stretch, losing five of their last six games.

This is who they are. Their 2022 resume is utterly meaningless at this point.

What about the 2023 Eagles leads you to give them the benefit of the doubt? What does this team do well in this moment?

The run game has been a shell of its once-fearsome self all year long. The aging secondary has gone from a concern to an outright liability the longer the season has worn on. The passing game rarely found the right mark this season, even when A.J. Brown was putting up bonkers numbers. There is no semblance of a true base NFL dropback passing game under Jalen Hurts in Philadelphia right now, and the lack of a needle-moving quarterback run game has sunk the aerial attack.

Those issues have been glaring for months. The problem now is that some of the things the Eagles roster is truly built on have started to show cracks. Pass protection has been an issue down the stretch, especially against good teams. Hurts isn’t helping matters as he’s been quick to bail on clean pockets all season, and a cascading effect is likely making the offensive line struggle. Blockers often discuss how hard it is to hold up in protection for a frenetic quarterback in creation mode, and Hurts has consistently slipped into the bad habits. On defense, the once-fearsome front line has not provided a game-tilting impact in quite some time. They’ve been pushed around in the run game and aren’t collapsing pockets as often.

This is who the 2023 Eagles are; believe them. Throw out past resumes, perceptions and records. We should firmly be on upset watch when they travel to Tampa Bay on Monday night.

Excuses in Seattle

The Seahawks had a complex path to the postseason in Week 18. They didn’t control their own destiny, but they at least took care of their portion with a by-the-skin-of-their-teeth win over the Cardinals.

They were able to back into the playoffs last season with a Packers loss in Week 18. This time, fate wasn’t on their side. Coming up on the wrong side of variance in an identical situation at the end of this season was a stark reminder that this Seahawks team didn’t improve one bit in the wake of its surprising 2022 run.

That’s a massive disappointment. The Seahawks added some seasoning on top of what looked like a foundation last season. They added two impact first-round rookies on either side of the ball and traded a Round 2 pick for Leonard Williams at the deadline, among other moves. And yet, they came up short. Frankly, I don’t think this group operated at a playoff level during any consistent stretch this season.

There are no excuses for this. Pete Carroll needs to find some answers and fast for a defense that’s been bad under his watch for an extended stretch now. They need to figure out why the offense was underwhelming despite all the talent in the pass-catch corps and a solid 2023 season from Geno Smith. Why did promising young talent on both sides of the ball fail to take a step forward? Instead, they seemingly regressed across the board.

Carroll has seen Seattle through many twists, turns and transitions throughout his time at the top of the organization. This one is a tricky equation to solve. The Seahawks are locked into this version of the team and now desperately need to figure out how to win on the margins in a terrifyingly competitive division.