CJ Stroud is an MVP Candidate

 

The rookie out of Ohio State, CJ Stroud, has emerged as one of the league's newest premier quarterbacks displaying his immense talents week in and week out. His most recent stellar performance came on the road in a victory over the Bengals and further proved why his name deserves to be in the MVP conversation. 

Stroud entered the NFL as the second overall pick in this previous draft to the Houston Texans. The Texans came in with the purpose of getting their quarterback for the future, surrounding him with a very young team with no legitimate thoughts of possibly winning now. The Texans just recently moved on from their previous franchise quarterback, Deshuan Watson, and honestly I don't think they imagined picking another talent as good as him this soon. 

Stroud has now turned something that seemed hard to achieve into a feat that he is slowly climbing up just nine games into his rookie season. Stroud is currently the leader by far in the Offensive Rookie of the Year race and also has been the most impressive rookie quarterback as well. If he continues to play like this, the Panthers will be strongly regretting their decision of being the only team to pass on him for years to come. 

Not only did he just come off an outstanding win on the road in Cincinnati, but he also threw for 470 yards and 5 touchdowns just a week before that in a massive win at home over Tampa Bay. What makes it even more impressive is that CJ is doing all of this with a rookie head coach as well in DeMeco Ryans. 

Ryans was my favorite head coach signing from this past offseason after spending the past couple of years as the 49ers defensive coordinator. It's not every season you see a rookie head coach come in and draft a rookie quarterback and succeed at this rate this quickly. What Ryans and Stroud are doing down in Houston is special and should not be overlooked. 

In a league where there is a ton of great quarterbacks, Stroud definitely deserves to have his name in contention for the MVP award. Awarding the MVP to a rookie is a very rare occurrence, but this is how good CJ Stroud has been. If Stroud can keep this up it will be regarded as another great story coming out of the NFL.