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C.J. Stroud's overlooked gem, Riley Moss' rise, more Week 4 thoughts: Quick Outs

9 October 2024Last Update :
C.J. Stroud's overlooked gem, Riley Moss' rise, more Week 4 thoughts: Quick Outs

October football is upon us. The early-season anomalies are slipping further and further into the rearview mirror, and the reality of the NFL landscape is beginning to take shape. This is the first real turning point of the season.

With that in mind, it’s time to take a little inventory on a couple breakout players plus dig into what’s wrong with the San Francisco 49ers’ red-zone offense. Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud also gets his time in the QB charting spotlight this week for an underrated, superhero performance against the Buffalo Bills.

No need to spoil things. Let’s jump into it.

QB Charting: C.J. Stroud

Stroud’s performance on Sunday will get lost in the shuffle.

Stroud threw one touchdown and one interception, while the Texans scored 23 points to squeak out a win. It’s more likely Stroud’s interception to linebacker Terrel Bernard or the fourth-quarter strip sack he coughed up or a bogus intentional grounding call that moved his team out of field-goal range will be remembered over anything else. There’s a bias toward holding onto things that happen at the end of games — and the end of this game was a roller coaster.

Upon closer inspection, though, Stroud is the only reason the Texans were in this game at all, especially after star wide receiver Nico Collins went down in the first half.

Stroud’s overall accuracy numbers are good but not eye-popping. He was accurate on 30 of 38 passes, and a majority of those throws were to the intermediate range between the numbers — pretty standard for a Shanahan-style offense.

But what pops off the film and the charting numbers is what Stroud did when the going got tough. He was electric under pressure. As a thrower, Stroud was accurate on 10 of 13 attempts under pressure, one of which was an end-of-half throwaway.

C.J. Stroud’s Week 5 numbers
Comp. Att. TDs WR Adj. Throwaways
Total
30 (3 drops)
38
1
4
1
Under pressure
10 (2 drops)
13
0
1
1
Out of pocket
3
5
0
0
0
5-plus pass rushers
7
9
0
2
0
Man coverage
6
9
0
0
0
Zone coverage
17 (3 drops)
20
1 (1 INT)
2
0
Tight-window throws
3
7
0 (1 INT)
1
0
Open-window throws
20 (3 drops)
21
1
0
0

Stroud’s first non-screen throw of the game was a checkdown to Cade Stover, after Stroud slid away from pressure. He also found Tank Dell on a deep crosser against man coverage early in the second quarter. And right out of the half, Stroud ripped a third-and-11 throw over the middle to Xavier Hutchinson, just as a slot-corner blitz was getting home.

Later in the third quarter, Stroud slid up in the pocket to avoid pressure off his right side before getting smacked by another pass rusher and layered a beautiful crossing route to Stefon Diggs. Stroud has made this kind of throw on repeat all season.

There were plenty of instances in which Stroud got the ball out before pressure could even arrive — his blitz replacement in this game was stellar. The Bills sent at least five bodies at Stroud on nine pass attempts; Stroud was accurate on seven of them.

He did a great job knowing where the void in the defense was, and he was especially quick to flip the ball out to running back Dare Ogunbowale when he knew he was getting heated up.

There’s no denying Stroud played an uneven fourth quarter, but the rest of his performance should not be forgotten because of that. Stroud was poised, accurate and quick on his feet for a majority of this game, all while playing without his top receiver for a lot of it.

These ugly, gritty wins against top teams are what you want out of a franchise quarterback. The best quarterbacks aren’t the best because they are always perfect, but because they can outweigh the mistakes they will inevitably make and lift the players around them. Stroud did just that on Sunday.

Needle-mover: Riley Moss

Pat Surtain II was a star the moment he put on a Denver Broncos jersey in 2021. He brought prototypical size and athleticism to the cornerback position, in addition to all the technical savvy you might expect from someone whose father played the position at a high level in the NFL.

It had been a struggle for the Broncos to find Surtain a running mate on the other side, though. Veterans Kyle Fuller and Bryce Callahan did an okay job in 2021, but it was a revolving door of cheap veterans and late-draft-pick dice rolls through 2022 and ’23. The Broncos could not find a long-term answer.

Enter Riley Moss, a 2023 third-round pick.

Moss hardly saw the field as a rookie last season. From the outside looking in, there wasn’t a ton of reason to believe Moss was going to make a leap this year and solidify Denver’s other outside cornerback spot. He was the best option given his draft status, sure, but he was no guarantee.

Moss has been a delightful surprise in 2024, though. Coverage stats are always kind of funky, but Moss has been a darling statistically. Quarterbacks are 18 of 31 for 182 yards (5.9 yards per pass) when Moss is the nearest defender, according to NFL Pro, and the only touchdown Moss has allowed this season was on a jump ball to Chris Godwin in Week 2. Godwin just does that sometimes, even to the best guys.

The passes Moss has allowed otherwise haven’t been very valuable, either. Per NFL Pro, Moss has allowed -4.4 EPA when targeted as the nearest defender. The two cornerbacks above him are Trent McDuffie and Trevon Diggs; the two below him are Christian Gonzalez and Derek Stingley Jr.

That’s the right group to be in as a young cornerback.

Watching how everything has come together for Moss has been sweet, because the tools were there coming out of college. Moss is all of 6-foot-1, 193 pounds and cleared the 75th percentile in the broad jump, vertical jump and 10-yard split during the pre-draft process. The dude can move.

The Broncos paired those athletic skills with Vance Joseph’s coaching while also letting Moss learn from the most technically sound cornerback in the league. And it put Moss on the fast track to playing quality football in the NFL.

Considering how long Denver has been looking for someone to hold it down opposite Surtain, it’s got to be a relief seeing what Moss has done through five weeks.

Stat check: Tank Bigsby’s yards after contact

Tank Bigsby is a vessel for chaos. He runs with reckless abandon. The vision and careful footwork you see from the league’s best backs are completely absent here. It’s more likely you’ll see Bigsby sprint full steam ahead into a pile of bodies or prematurely bounce a play to the perimeter, just to see if he can make a cornerback miss a tackle.

Somehow, that unfiltered rushing style is working. If it seems like Bigsby has trucked a defender before racing down the sideline for another 30 yards every week, it’s because he basically has. He’s averaging 7.1 yards after contact this season, per NFL Pro. Bigsby’s ability to remain balanced after shrugging off the first defender and hit the gas immediately afterwards is paying huge dividends.

He is getting it done in all kinds of ways, too.

Against the Dolphins in Week 1, he ripped off his first explosive play by bouncing a duo run to the outside and making cornerback Jalen Ramsey miss in space. Against the Texans a couple weeks ago, Bigsby delivered a 58-yard touchdown on third-and-3 by slipping by a lower-body tackle attempt and outrunning the deep safety. Those are the moments when you see his speed.

The Colts got the brunt of Bigsby’s violence Sunday. Bigsby punched in an 18-yard touchdown by dragging defenders half the distance, churning his legs like crazy and refusing to go down.

Later in the game, Bigsby cut a toss play back up the middle and put Colts safety Julian Blackmon in the dirt to give himself a clean runway for a 65-yard touchdown. Bigsby can turn one broken tackle into a drive-defining play, and the Colts proved that bringing multiple tacklers doesn’t necessarily solve the problem.

The question now is: How long can Bigsby sustain this? No running back in the league has finished with more than 3.9 yards after contact in either of the last two seasons, so it’s probably fair to assume Bigsby will normalize back toward that range.

Even with that in mind, however, it’s a huge boon that this Jaguars offense — thanks to Bigsby — has shown some capacity to get explosives in the run game. A few more of those plays might go a long way in righting Jacksonville’s ship.

Scramble drill: Are the 49ers’ red-zone woes real or fake?

There is nothing wrong with the San Francisco offense between the 20s.

Through five weeks, the 49ers rank fourth in success rate and third in EPA per play outside the red zone, per TruMedia. Brock Purdy is throwing the ball more aggressively than ever, to great success, even without having some of his best pass catchers at various points. The guys who have been on the field are hauling in ridiculous catches every week. Backup running back Jordan Mason has filled in nicely for Christian McCaffrey.

Finishing, though? The 49ers, for all their success before they reach the red zone, have been as bad as anyone at converting those drives into seven points instead of three.

Just 40.9 percent of the 49ers’ red-zone chances have turned into touchdowns, a bottom-five rate in the league. They also rank 25th in offensive success rate on a play-by-play basis in the red zone, according to TruMedia.

There’s probably some early-season noise there, but it’s not just that. Kyle Shanahan’s offense clearly misses its skeleton key: McCaffrey.

Let’s just start with McCaffrey as a runner. To this point in the season, San Francisco’s 1.06 yards after contact in the red zone is the worst mark in the league, per TruMedia. McCaffrey averaged 2.24 yards after contact in the red zone last year. His combination of vision, pacing and balance is such a weapon when the yards are tougher to come by.

But it’s really McCaffrey’s value as a receiver that is missing. He can be flexed out into the slot or out wide as a receiver. When Shanahan is really feeling it, he can get McCaffrey going in the screen game. McCaffrey is the league’s scariest checkdown option and its best receiving back, in every way.

A year ago, McCaffrey ranked second among running backs in red-zone routes (58) and first in red-zone targets (16). He also led the league with five touchdowns in those spots. By contrast, Mason has run 23 red-zone routes in 2024, tied for most in the league — and been targeted once, according to TruMedia.

It’s hard to imagine an offense this talented will remain this bad at scoring touchdowns, even without its best player. McCaffrey is the straw that stirs the drink, though. The pace and explosiveness he brings as a runner paired with his unique receiving ability for the position is a nightmare equation for defenses in the red zone.

The 49ers won’t feel like the same offense, in that area of the field, until McCaffrey is back in action.

(Lead illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; Top photo of C.J. Stroud: Tim Warner / Getty Images; Stroud chart illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic)

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