HOUSTON – Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud, a lock for NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year and an MVP candidate, was named the AFC Offensive Player of the Month and the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Month for November.
He’s the second rookie quarterback in NFL history to win AFC Offensive Player of the Month, the fifth to earn NFL Offensive Rookie of the Month in the same month. He joined Barry Sanders, Edgerrin James, Mike Anderson, Kareem Hunt and Deshaun Watson.
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Stroud passed for 1,456 yards, 10 touchdowns and four interceptions in November with a 109.9 passer rating as the team went 3-1 overall.
No quarterback led their team to more victories in November than Stroud.
“I think I’ve gotten better over the weeks,” Stroud said. “I definitely feel like I’ve done a decent job of taking care of the football, and that was the goal of mine just because I wanted the coaches to trust me to call those shots. And if it’s not there, I’m going to make the play right, and I feel like this last game definitely showed my maturity, because they really took away all our deep shots, and I was running the ball, checking it down, trying to do my best just extending the play if I had to. So, just taking steps and strides every week has definitely been a goal of mine, and I feel like I’ve done a decent job of that, and just controlled aggression has definitely been the two words I use. Just being aggressive when it’s there but being smart and controlling that whenever it’s not.”
Stroud set an NFL rookie single-game record with 470 passing yards and five touchdowns in a comeback win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He led the Texans to a comeback win over the Cincinnati Bengals.
He became just the second rookie in league annals to total over 800 passing yards in a two-game span.
Stroud finished the month ranking first in the conference in nearly every major passing category, including completions, yards, passer rating, touchdown passes, yards per attempt, explosive pass plays and more. He became the NFL’s all-time passing leader for yards as a rookie through 11 games with 3,266 yards.
Stroud already earned AFC Offensive Player of the Week honors in Week 9 and was named NFL Offensive Rookie of the Month for the season’s opening month in September.
Stroud is on pace to finish the season with over 5,000 passing yards.
He has completed 63.7 percent of his throws for 19 touchdowns and five interceptions and has rushed for 132 yards and three touchdowns.
“I think the best teacher is failing,” Stroud said. “I’ve failed a lot, and I’ve learned from those mistakes, and I’ve been growing from that since really I came in during rookie minicamp. So it’s been kind of cool just to see the progress, not only for myself, but really for this team and every rookie we have. There’s a rookie in almost every position group that’s making plays, so it’s really exciting to see that and we’ve got to keep growing from there.”
Aaron Wilson is a Texans and NFL reporter for KPRC 2 and click2houston.com
