Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I’ve been a Giants fan my whole life, but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to watch another one of their games this season.
In today’s SI:AM:
? C.J. Stroud’s record-setting game
? Albert Breer’s Week 9 takeaways
If you’re reading this on SI.com, you can sign up to get this free newsletter in your inbox each weekday at SI.com/newsletters.
Houston is on the right track again
The Texans have found their quarterback of the future.
C.J. Stroud went off in Houston’s 39–37 win over the Buccaneers yesterday afternoon, throwing for an NFL rookie-record 470 yards while completing 71.4% of his passes (30-for-42). He threw five touchdown passes with no interceptions.
(For more on Stroud’s big game, check out Conor Orr’s piece on why he’s already a top quarterback in the league.)
To put those numbers in context, Stroud’s 470 passing yards were the most by any quarterback in a game this season. Only three other players have even thrown for 400: Tua Tagovailoa (466 in Week 1), Patrick Mahomes (424 in Week 7) and Justin Herbert (405 in Week 3). Stroud’s passer rating was 147.8, a number surpassed this season by only three of the best quarterbacks in the league (Tagovailoa, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson). Stroud also became just the sixth player in the last four seasons to throw five TDs without being picked off, joining Patrick Mahomes (who’s done it three times), Tom Brady (twice), Russell Wilson, Dak Prescott and Jameis Winston. Even more impressive, he’s just the sixth QB in history to have a game with at least 450 passing yards, at least five TDs and no interceptions.
But Stroud didn’t just rack up empty-calorie stats—he engineered a flawless last-minute drive to lead his team to victory. After Tampa Bay scored the go-ahead touchdown with 46 seconds left, Stroud marched his team down the field with five consecutive completions, including the game-winning 15-yard touchdown pass to Tank Dell. (Watch the final three plays of the drive here.)
The highlight of Stroud’s game-winning drive was a 26-yard gain to Dell with 16 seconds on the clock and no timeouts. Stroud placed the ball perfectly in between two defenders, right as Dell was about to cross the sideline. It picked up a big chunk of yardage while also stopping the clock, setting up the eventual touchdown throw to Dell.
Stroud’s pinpoint accuracy was on full display on that drive and also throughout the game. In the third quarter, remaining calm as the pocket collapsed around him, he dropped a dime over a defender, hitting Dell in stride in the end zone. It was a great throw, but it was set up by Stroud’s immediate recognition of what the defense was giving him.
“I was supposed to have a curl, but C.J. told me as I was leaving the huddle … he was like, Pump it,” Dell told Albert Breer. “I went out there and I did exactly like he said. He threw a great ball, didn’t have to do too much. I just had to run a nice route, and he put it right on the money where it’s supposed to be. I can’t take the credit for that one. C.J., he’s a ballplayer.”
Eight games into his NFL career, Stroud looks like the real deal. He’s had the occasional struggles you’d expect from a rookie (like last week against the Panthers, when he threw for only 140 yards but still completed 16 of 24 passes), but he ranks near the top of the league in several key categories. He’s thrown only one interception and has the lowest interception rate of any quarterback in the league. He’s third in the NFL with 283.8 yards per game, third with 8.1 yards per attempt and fourth with a passer rating of 102.9. In the history of the NFL, only six rookie quarterbacks who started at least four games have had a passer rating of more than 100.
Stroud’s rookie year is exactly what every rebuilding team hopes for when taking a quarterback near the top of the draft. He’s already immediately turned Houston from a perpetual laughingstock into a respectable team. At 4–4, the Texans have won as many games this season as they have in any of the past three. A playoff berth this season might be asking a little too much, but it’s clear that Houston is going to be a factor in the AFC South sooner than later.
The best of Sports Illustrated
- Albert Breer’s Week 9 takeaways cover the Eagles’ win over the Cowboys, C.J. Stroud’s breakout game, Joshua Dobbs’s leading the Vikings to victory and more.
- Gilberto Manzano also wrote about the Eagles and their stout defense in his “Five Things We Learned.”
- Conor Orr believes that Daniel Jones’s knee injury makes it easy to imagine the Giants moving on from him.
- Michael Fabiano has a list of players you should be targeting on the fantasy football waiver wire.
- Mike McDaniel projected what this week’s College Football Playoff rankings will look like.
- USC finally fired defensive coordinator Alex Grinch.
- Eagles tight end Dallas Goedert reportedly fractured his arm against the Cowboys.
The top five…
… things I saw this weekend:
5. Penn running back Malachi Hosley’s 96-yard touchdown run against Cornell.
4. Anthony Rizzo’s reaction as Aaron Judge congratulated his wife, Samantha, at the finish line of the New York City Marathon.
3. Victor Wembanyama’s forcing Raptors shooters into back-to-back air balls.
2. Vikings quarterback Joshua Dobbs’s learning the team’s snap cadences on the sideline before the game because he barely got to practice this week after being acquired in a trade with the Cardinals. Dobbs, who was pressed into action after an injury to starter Jaren Hall, didn’t know any of Minnesota’s plays or even his receivers’ full names but still led the Vikes to a 31–28 win.
1. Texans running back Dare Ogunbowale’s go-ahead 29-yard field goal in the fourth quarter after an injury to kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn.
SIQ
What was the final score when Rutgers and Princeton played the first college football game in history on this day in 1869?
- 3–0
- 7–3
- 10–0
- 6–4
Friday’s SIQ: On Nov. 3, 1987, who joined Gordie Howe as the only players in NHL history with 1,700 career points?
- Mark Messier
- Wayne Gretzky
- Marcel Dionne
- Bryan Trottier
Answer: Marcel Dionne. He scored his 700th goal on Oct. 31, reached 1,700 points with another goal on Nov. 3, then recorded his 1,000th assist on Nov. 7.
Dionne was the third player in NHL history to reach the 1,000-assist milestone. Wayne Gretzky got there just four days earlier in a game against Dionne’s Rangers.
Dionne is often overlooked among more celebrated contemporaries like Gretzky, Mark Messier and Mario Lemieux, likely because he never won a Stanley Cup, but he had a fantastic career. He ranks sixth all time with 1,771 points and was named to the NHL’s 100th anniversary team in 2017.
