Despite overall offensive limitations this season, Houston Texans second-year quarterback C.J. Stroud isn’t slowing down. A week after throwing for over 300 yards in a victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars, Stroud sliced and diced the Buffalo Bills’ secondary with a 331-yard outing en route to a 23-20 win.
With that positive performance, Stroud rose from No. 11 to No. 9 in ESPN’s Total QBR rankings this week. ESPN gave Stroud a 78.4 Total QBR rating against the Bills, his best of the season.
Stroud’s traditional passer rating against Buffalo was 97.6, which actually represented one of his lower ratings of the year. It’s still a promising look, but far from the standard for the second-year target.
Unlike a traditional passer rating, the Total QBR “incorporates all of a quarterback’s contributions to winning, including how he impacts the game on passes, rushes, turnovers and penalties,” according to ESPN.
The metric also considers scenarios that a traditional passer rating overlooks and looks at “a team’s level of success or failure on every play to provide the proper context and then allocates credit to the quarterback and his teammate to produce a clearer measure of quarterback efficiency.”
Through five games, Stroud’s thrown three interceptions and been sacked 14 times. Two turnovers came in the 34-7 loss against the Minnesota Vikings in Week 3.
Here’s a look at where Stroud stacks up against the NFL’s other starting quarterbacks entering Week 6.
NFL QBs ranked by Total QBR entering Week 6
- Josh Allen: 77.6
- Joe Burrow: 73.6
- Jayden Daniels: 73.2
- Andy Dalton: 67.1
- Lamar Jackson: 67.1
- Kyler Murray: 66.4
- Brock Purdy: 66.0
- C.J. Stroud: 64.4
- Baker Mayfield: 64.0
- Derek Carr: 63.6
- Geno Smith: 63.5
- Daniel Jones: 61.3
- Jalen Hurts: 59.3
- Sam Darnold: 58.7
- Dak Prescott: 56.8
- Patrick Mahomes: 55.8
- Kirk Cousins: 55.2
- Matthew Stafford: 53.8
- Trevor Lawrence: 53.2
- Anthony Richardson: 49.3
- Aaron Rodgers: 49.1
- Justin Fields: 48.0
- Jordan Love: 46.1
- Jared Goff: 44.8
- Bo Nix: 43.1
- Justin Herbert: 41.8
- Gardner Minshew: 41.1
- Jacoby Brissett: 38.9
- Caleb Williams: 36.3
- Will Levis: 27.3
- Tyler Huntley: 23.5
- Deshaun Watson: 21.0
Nix and the Broncos will host the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 6.
