- 1 week ago
Seth Payne and Sean Pendergast what a contract could look like for Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud.
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00:00It's been fun. Yesterday, even though it was Labor Day, there's so much content about the NFL.
00:06It's crazy.
00:06It was a good opportunity to kind of start to try to catch up on the rest of the league
00:11and
00:12how they're off seasons once. It seemed like every single outlet had eight different articles about
00:18expectations for this team, expectations for that team. It's funny because I don't know if
00:25you know this, but C.J. Stroud is kind of a topic. It's funny, though. Even in the national media,
00:34I feel like everybody got so burnt out on having the same takes about C.J. Stroud over and over
00:40and over again that I watched a few different previews of the Texans from the smart people,
00:46the nerdy types, like the athletic football show and everything. It was like they were avoiding
00:53talking about C.J. until the very end, which is bad for maximum clickbait. You should always lead
01:00with the quarterback, but I respect that nobody wants to talk about C.J. Stroud. You just want
01:05to see it get done. That's where I am. I'm at a breaking point where I just can't hear any
01:11of
01:11the same arguments about why C.J. Stroud is awful or why C.J. Stroud is good when we're five
01:16days away
01:17from just actual football, and I'm so excited just to see, okay, we get to actually judge people
01:24based on what they're doing in the present. Oh, I'm so excited. No conceptual stuff anymore. It's
01:29going to be real. That'll be nice. I think if I'm not mistaken, you and Luke talked about the
01:37athletic, the survey they did of the 20 executives, right? They picked MVP. Who would you trade two
01:45first-round picks? So they're like eight or nine questions, and this is where I got to thinking
01:49about C.J. Stroud. Not the fact that he wasn't named on the MVP. I didn't expect him to get
01:53MVP
01:54votes, but C.J. is sitting on the cusp of a really big opportunity here early in the season,
02:01and what made me think of that was the very, I think it was the very first question in that
02:06article,
02:06which was they surveyed 20 anonymous executives on various topics around the NFL, and the very first one
02:12was who will be the MVP of the league in 2026, I think is how they framed it, and I
02:18think Josh
02:19Allen got the most votes. He got like five or six votes. Second was Joe Burrow. Dak Prescott was in
02:25that mix. The three of them were in the top four or five. Yeah. The Texans play all three of
02:31those
02:32quarterbacks at home in the first four weeks of the season. Oh, yeah. Their first three home games of
02:39the season are against those three quarterbacks, so C.J. and the Texans, but C.J. has a huge
02:47opportunity here. If any quarterback were ever set up to flush a narrative that he created with poor
02:54performance in the playoffs a year ago in terms of the circumstances that the schedule maker had put
02:59in front of him, it's C.J. Stroud in 2026. He opens with Josh Allen, who won that MVP vote
03:05by those
03:0520 anonymous executives. He then faces Joe Burrow, who's been putting up, when he's been on the field,
03:11has been putting up monster numbers, and then two weeks after that, he faces Dak Prescott
03:16and the Dallas Cowboys. Those three guys are considered among, at least by those executives,
03:23among the five best MVP candidates in the league, and the best part for C.J. is that he's playing
03:28all
03:28three of them at home? Yeah. And we know that other than a game here and a game there,
03:34Lamar Jackson on Christmas, Will Levis out of nowhere a couple of years ago. Lamar Jackson is
03:40the big one. Like, the Texans have a way of making premier quarterbacks look like very mediocre
03:45quarterbacks at home. At home. At home. Except for Lamar Jackson. Well, it's like the best version of
03:50Lamar Jackson. Yeah, fortunately, Lamar Jackson is not. He's later in the season. He's week 12.
03:55No, but even games like, okay, Bo Nix didn't look great, except that he did. He looked like Bo Nix
04:01in the fourth quarter. Yeah. So he's got an opportunity. To really flip this thing on its
04:07head. Right. Not that he should necessarily care about that part of it, but damn it, we do.
04:12Hell yeah, we do. In radio, hell yeah, we do. If he's playing well, and especially he's playing
04:17well in games where the other marquee quarterbacks are struggling, yeah, that's a good feeling. And you're
04:23right. I mean, you know what? I can't believe I hadn't even thought about it this way because
04:25it always usually does ultimately boil down to the quarterbacks in the NFL. They've got
04:30a great slate of just flat out quarterback battles. Yes. Or not even, don't even make
04:36it a quarterback battle, but you're seeing a bunch of good quarterbacks that are in the
04:40running for MVP. And it's a, it's, it's an awesome test and showcase for the Texans defense
04:45as well. These are the quarterbacks that the, the gauntlet of quarterbacks that CJ wants
04:51to get paid, like that he's going to be going against this season. Josh Allen, uh, in no
04:58particular order. Cause I put this list together when the, when we knew who the opponents were
05:01going to be like back in February, I didn't, I haven't, I haven't put it in chronological
05:06order, but these are all quarterbacks who are getting paid like 50 million bucks a year.
05:10And CJ is going to go against all of them this year. Josh Allen, Justin Herbert, Joe
05:14Burrow, Lamar Jackson, Jalen Hurts, Dak Prescott. You know, I I'll throw like Jaden
05:22Daniels in there because Jaden Daniels is going to be in that, you know, barring injury and
05:27a bad year or whatever. Like Jaden Daniels is going to be in that class. Jordan Love is
05:31in the Trevor Lawrence twice. Hell Daniel Jones makes 44 million a year.
05:36You know, so I think the thing is though, that according to Jeremy Fowler, the Texans
05:41did make CJ Stroud an offer that was somewhere in the fifties. Yeah. The, the, the question
05:45really is if the quarterback market goes up to 69 or 70 million, that's really the, you
05:52know, I think CJ, if he shows that he belongs in that conversation, people believe that that
05:58type of quarterback from next off season onward is going to be making about 69 or $70 million.
06:03It's a good, it's a really good, it's a really good point. I guess the way I'd frame
06:05it then is not so much. These are the guys that are in the $50 million club. Cause the
06:09guys, most of them I just named are going to want in that 60 and $70 million club. Yeah.
06:13Yeah. It's in that, it's in that top tier salary and people anticipate that that's where the
06:19market's going to be. I had a concern for one of my live stream viewers the other day, because
06:24I was, I was talking about those numbers and I said, you know, right around now, like 53
06:29to 55 million is a average. That's the going rate for a quality starting quarterback, but people
06:35expect that, you know, I said, CJ is going to bet on himself evidently. And next year
06:41when the market, if it gets reset, it's $70 million per year that that's why he's betting
06:46on himself. And the guy replied, well, what's it worth betting on himself for an extra five
06:52or $6 million? And it set my head spinning that this literate person was some, it's, it's, it's,
07:02let's give you a 55 million to make it the easy math. So it's 15 million per year. We're talking
07:08a potential $60 million difference. That's where he's betting on himself. Yeah. So you had some
07:14dullard that doesn't know math in your live stream. I don't want to call him a dullard.
07:18It was just a pretty, for somebody that otherwise is sending like, like on a live stream, my
07:23expectations aren't high for how you're going to type your comments in, but he was asking
07:28questions in complete sentences and with perfect spelling and everything. Is he the only one
07:31doing that also? So it wasn't like you said a wrong number and no, no, no, no, no, no. He
07:36just, yeah, it wasn't. No, thanks. Thanks for that. But, uh, no, it was, uh, thanks for
07:42knowing that I probably would do something like that. No, but it's a, you are, you're talking
07:47about your betting on yourself for potentially 50 or 60 million. Right. Plus we don't know
07:50without getting too much into contract talk. We, Jeremy Fowler reported that the offer was
07:56in the 50 millions. A, we don't know if that's true. B, if it was, there's a good chance that
08:00it was a Texan style extension, which was a shorter term deal. Yeah. And so it could be
08:05no CJ's betting on himself for an extra 50, 60, $70 million over the life of the contract.
08:11Yeah. Yeah. Well, and we don't know what the guaranteed money was all that.
08:14And I think this too, cause I looked in the rundown yesterday and saw some of this stuff
08:18that you and Luke were talking about. And I saw you guys were chopping it up at least
08:23in the rundown. I didn't get to listen to the show, but the, about Amin Thompson's contract
08:27that he signed last week and kind of making the comparison to CJ Stroud, which I thought
08:30was a really interesting and apropos comparison, you know, that the Texans are kind of doing with
08:37CJ. If we, if we, if the reports about an offer in the 50 to $55 million range are to
08:42be
08:42believed, then they kind of were hoping that CJ would do the same thing Amin Thompson just
08:47did. Yeah. Which is take a little less than he could have if he'd waited another year and
08:51taken a max deal. And if, from the Rockets standpoint, I think that's why it's a good
08:56contract for the Rockets. It's very team friendly. If Amin Thompson really, especially maybe this
09:01year with a point guard on the floor, it becomes really that, if one of those top tier, genuine
09:06top tier players, then that's a great bargain for the Rockets. Absolutely. Similarly, as I saw you
09:12guys put in the notes, if CJ were to have agreed to 50 million a year, let's say, and he
09:17has the
09:17ascension that he seems to be betting on, then that 50 million a year is an excellent, excellent
09:22deal for the Texans. He's not doing that. He's betting on himself. And I started thinking about
09:26that. I'm like, that's a really interesting comparison. The difference is, to me, is, is
09:31one of those things that's probably more ego driven than anything else. In the NBA, you're
09:34dealing with max contracts. So you're not resetting a market, right? You're just like, you're
09:39getting a deal that kind of everybody else is getting that's in a certain range of player.
09:43I do wonder if there's something to CJ that even if it only happens for like three weeks,
09:49because he can sign a deal before some of these other guys can, because like these year three
09:54guys, they can't, like the Jayden Daniels and Drake Mays of the world have to wait until
09:58mid-March to sign because of the rules, because they have just finished their third year. CJ can sign
10:04a deal anytime he wants to, because he's past that deadline of year three. I do wonder if there's
10:09something about resetting the market to CJ that wants to be the first 70 million. He,
10:13that may be part of him. And I wouldn't blame him if this were the case. We all got egos
10:17that even if it's only for a few weeks, he wants to say he was the highest paid player in
10:22the history
10:22of football. Yeah. Yeah. Or if that matters to him, maybe also there doesn't want to be the guy
10:27that rapidly became the sixth highest paid quarterback in football. That's the, that's the, the big
10:33question is how long do they blink in it? I don't know. CJ seems to almost have a little bit
10:37of a
10:37chip on his shoulder right now. You can see it better because his hair's all trimmed out.
10:42That's right. You can see his shoulders. Yeah. Like, I don't know that, that DJ B
10:45anime article comes out and he says, I'm a hell of a football player. God has chosen me to be
10:50that
10:51dude. Yes. Yeah. That was a paraphrase on the second one. Yeah. So the, I, yeah, I have zero clue.
10:57I know that I much for my own sanity want to be in the position where in February we're saying
11:03something like, go ahead and give him whatever he wants. Holy crap. Yep. You see that? That
11:07would be amazing. Whoever had a Superbowl like that before. Oh, that would be the best. And then
11:12somebody says, Joe Flacco. Shut up. Shut up. Shut your stupid mouth. You know what? I think Raven
11:17fans are cool with the Joe Flacco experiencing getting one suit. I would take one Superbowl and
11:22then wringing our hands for the next four years over CJ's performance. If that's, if that's what it
11:27takes. Um, did you, do you guys check text message about this very topic? Do you guys think the
11:32Texans offered CJ, the Will Anderson contract? I do. I think they offered, and we use that
11:37as a hypothetical before there was news of that three years, 150 million. I would buy
11:41if I would bet that they offered CJ Stroud three years, 150. Oh, okay. So they, okay.
11:46I didn't know if they meant like the Will Anderson contract in terms of a record setting contract.
11:50So like the actual contract. Yeah. The numbers I would bet. I would bet. Cause I, I could
11:56see. It feels kind of like giving a NASCAR driver, uh, you know, uh, uh, uh, some dirt,
12:03dirt track car or something. Like you're a quarterback. You're like, uh, Hey, cool. Oh,
12:08go. You're going to give me the best defense salary. Dirt track. Yeah. That's a, no, it's
12:13like, okay. So you just see, look, I'm, I'm accustomed to my quarterback. I'm thinking of
12:17a different category of vehicle here. And it's just the, that's, you can give me the best
12:22dirt track car, but that's not a quarterback contract. No, no, that's true. That's true.
12:27I feel like, I feel like you're big bro-ing me with Will Anderson's contract a little bit.
12:31Like Will comes in and he's like, welcome to the defensive end club. Yeah. Thanks.
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