{"id":418481,"date":"2026-01-20T10:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T10:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/418481\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T10:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T10:09:08","slug":"demeco-ryans-wants-c-j-stroud-to-flush-sundays-performance-against-the-patriots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/418481\/","title":{"rendered":"DeMeco Ryans wants C.J. Stroud to “flush” Sunday’s performance against the Patriots"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texans coach DeMeco Ryans said Sunday that he didn\u2019t consider<\/a> making a quarterback change in the division-round loss to the Patriots, despite four first-half interceptions from C.J. Stroud.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Ryans was asked to provide a big-picture assessment of Stroud\u2019s play during the 2025 season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe quarterback position is going to get the most eyes, most attention,\u201d Ryans told reporters. \u201cWe understand that. In this league, that\u2019s what it is. C.J. understands that as well. Throughout the season, I thought he did a really nice job of coming in and learning a new offense, new scheme. I thought he picked it up well. We got better as the season went along and he made some plays to allow us to win a lot of football games as well. I\u2019m not going to let the bad plays there in that game [against the Patriots] dictate to me who C.J. is. I know who C.J. is. I know what he\u2019s capable of doing. We just keep looking to get better. No one feels worse about the situation than C.J. He feels bad for the team. He feels like he let the team down, and I just told him, \u2018Keep your head up and you keep moving forward.\u2019 We all want it better. We can\u2019t go back in that game right now and run it back and play it again. We just learn from it. What do you learn from it? That\u2019s my main message to him is, what do you learn from that and how do you make that a priority and getting it fixed and improving and getting better?\u201d<\/p>\n

So where does Ryans want to see Stroud improve on for 2026?<\/p>\n

\u201cI talked with C.J. today and my message is the same,\u201d Ryans said. \u201cRight now, it\u2019s just about him flushing this one. It\u2019s going to be a lot of negative talk, a lot of attention on him. He can\u2019t listen to it all. He\u2019s just got to get back to work in the offseason of going back to the basics, the fundamentals of playing the quarterback position, playing it really well, understanding how we need to play the game to win the game. He understands that already. . . .<\/p>\n

\u201cI just told him, \u2018Don\u2019t listen to anything. Put your phone away. Don\u2019t listen to anything, because there\u2019s going to be a lot of negative talk out there for you.\u2019 Specifically, I just told him to get away, clear his mind. Because right now, at this moment, I know there\u2019s going to be a lot of attention on him, a lot of negative media, and today, a lot of questions about him. That\u2019s what it is, and he understands the position that he is in. As a quarterback leading the team, a lot is expected of you, a lot of eyes are on you, so when it doesn\u2019t go right, there\u2019s going to be a lot of negative talk about you. He understands that and he just can\u2019t allow the opinions of others to weigh who he really is inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Texans undoubtedly will pick up the fifth-year option on Stroud\u2019s rookie deal. The question is whether they\u2019ll be willing to give him a second contract before or after he has a chance to show that he can respond to not one but two bad games in the 2025 playoffs; Ryans declined generally to get into the question of contract extension on Monday.<\/p>\n

Last week, it was five fumbles (two of which were lost) and an interception. This week, it was four interceptions. That\u2019s seven turnovers in two games. And so while Stroud may indeed flush it, the question is whether it will go down the drain \u2014 or whether it will gurgle back up in 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texans coach DeMeco Ryans said Sunday that he didn\u2019t consider making a quarterback change in the division-round loss…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-418481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}