Through the first four games of the NFL season Houston Texans rookie quarterback and second overall pick in the NFL Draft, C.J. Stroud is fourth in the NFL in passing yards, throwing for at least 240 yards in each game.
The Texans also come into this game on a two game winning streak with their most recent win being a convincing 30-6 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, so with Houston coming to Atlanta with a hot quarterback and a hot team, how do the Falcons slow them down on Sunday?
The Morning Shift broke it down earlier today, and the answer is simply…pressure. Beau Morgan is confident the Falcons can hit Stroud early and often too.
“There’s no thought in my mind that we can’t get after him. There’s no reason we can’t do anything to confuse these guys. I don’t know why we can’t get after him.” Morgan said.
However, Beau knows it’s not enough for the Falcons to just get pressure, but they have to pressure C.J. right away. “We’ve got to get to him early. The most important thing about this game Sunday is that you start fast on both sides of the ball.” Beau said.
One thing that will help the Falcons get that pressure is the fact that the Texans are dealing with serious injuries across the entire offensive line. Center Michael Deiter, Offensive Tackle Josh Jones, and Left Tackle Laremy Tunsil are all currently listed as questionable for Sunday’s game.
To make matters worse, Houston traded for center/guard Kendrick Green after losing left guard Kenyon Green for the year with a shoulder injury, and now Kendrick Green is out indefinitely with a torn meniscus in his right knee that he suffered on Sunday.
However, Mike Johnson thinks Atlanta’s pass rush might be able to take advantage of Houston’s injury problems across the offensive line.
“I do wonder though with all of these kind of piano keys up front, if you may be able to get home on some of these obvious passing down situations with the stunts up front. I think that’s the way you do it. Ryan Nielsen has done a good job of exploiting those situations throughout the year, even though those sack totals might not look like Falcons fans want them to they have had an effective pass rush, whether or not they’ve gotten the quarterback down they’ve been effective at getting in the backfield.” Mike said.
No matter how good C.J. Stroud has been, he is still a rookie quarterback, and if you pressure him early and often, make him speed up his internal clock, there’s a pretty good chance he will make some mistakes which could result in the Falcons defense creating some turnovers, and the team getting a much needed win.