Texans - 21, Cardinals - 16
Q. Walk us through the (indiscernible) defense to pick you up on a rough day passing for you?
C.J. STROUD: They did a great job. That's complementary football right there, them working with me, I'm working with them, week in and week out.
And I thought we threw the ball really well. I don't look at three plays and, like, dang, I had a bad game. Of course I can't turn the ball over that much. Threw for 300 yards again two touchdowns. I don't think I played terrible, but of course you can't turn the ball over.
But the defense definitely held us up when we needed them to. And just a great game to learn from.
Q. (Indiscernible) with this win, next week you have Jacksonville Jaguars coming into your stadium who you defeated in Jacksonville the first game of the season. At the end of the game, winner is in first place of the division. Did you ever in your wildest dreams think you would be headed to this spot in the latter part of the season?
C.J. STROUD: Yes, sir, we have expectations we hold ourselves to and standards we hold ourselves to. We started that back with OTAs. It's not what everybody else thinks or what they thought we were going to be at this point. It's about what we're going to put on that field.
It's been really cool to play with my teammates and build week in, week out. Now that we've put ourselves in a great position to play for the division, it's really special.
This week is going to mean a lot. Gotta go practice really hard and put another great weekend in practice. And around Thanksgiving you want to be playing your best football. I feel we're doing that.
Of course you've got to eliminate the negative plays but other than that we're moving the ball really well. Defense is getting stops. It's the NFL. Every game is a fight and a battle to the very end and we're just going to keep going.
Q. Going into the draft, a lot of people doubted Tank because of his size and didn't think he could succeed at the NFL level. What do you think about he's done and the success he's had despite the size?
C.J. STROUD: I'm super proud of him. He's somebody who -- I came in, he was somebody who I was in contact with right after we both got drafted. We had a two-week period where we were away. We stayed in contact and just were helping each other with the plays and things like that.
And then we got here and we had just like a natural connection. And that's grown from hard work, being very disciplined and things like that.
I'm super proud to see the fruits of his labor pay off and he's going to continue to do great things. He's definitely a superstar in this league. He's going to continue to show that. I'm really proud of that dude. He works his tail off every day.
I've never seen somebody work as hard as him at receiver other than who I went to college with, and you can see like on his navigation, his speed, he's running full speed every day. And that's hard to do.
He's definitely a great, great talent, a great player and a great person. I'm blessed enough to be teammates with him.
Q. Can you walk us through that play? Tank said he never saw you pointing, everybody else saw you -- could you walk how that works and how that type of play comes to (indiscernible) for you guys?
C.J. STROUD: They got a little pressure. It was a drop back from under center. They got a little pressure. I was able to get the edge and escape. Those are things we work on in practice is this scramble drill.
He made a distinct move took and off to the back pylon and I feel he had good leverage on the defender. And just trying to give him a shot and throw a good ball. And I don't know if he seen me or not but I know he caught it. It was a really great catch.
I'm really happy that play was able to be made. And I think we can build on top of that as something in this league that you have to be great at is a scramble drill. Sometimes they do good in coverage. They get paid, too. So you're playing against a great defense, a great team every year.
And that Cardinals team took the team to the wire every game. For us to be able to pull out a win and Tank to make plays the way he's been able to make them, to run the ball is something we'll continue to build on.
Q. Building on what you just said, how much does it mean to win a game like this, to overcome all the adversity and win a game, what does that say about the character of this team?
C.J. STROUD: I think it's three weeks in a row of us executing the two-minute drill and the first time we had those, we didn't win, we lost to Carolina and lost to Atlanta on two-minute drills.
And we came back had a leadership council and wanted a lot more two-minute walk-throughs. And DeMeco did that for us. And I think it's paying off.
This game -- this league and these games towards the end of November, going into December, they're not going to be easy. And it's all about just not blinking. And I think this team is building a callus to that.
We don't have to live in that world, which I know we keep doing it. But we could start putting people away that would be helpful and cool. It is what it is. You get it any way you can in this league. You want to win.
That Cardinals team had really good DBs and really good players. But we still threw the ball really well. And of course everybody will highlight the turnovers and everything. And that's fine. At the end of the day we'll keep doing us and keep proving ourselves right.
I'm really blessed to get these type of wins, but we don't have to and hopefully we'll stop doing that. If we need to pull it out of the bag, we will.
Q. You took a big shot had to come out of the game, overall that process, getting back out there, how do you feel? And the second piece of that is do you feel now, given the last two weeks, having to do some risk assessment management, whether it's in the low (indiscernible), high (indiscernible), plus on the field, how do you go about picking your spots when to be aggressive.
C.J. STROUD: I'm good. I just got the wind knocked out of me. I'm all right. Took a couple shots. But that's football. I'll be okay.
And, man, Steph Curry don't ever stop shooting. I'm going to keep letting it ride. And I've got no shame in my game. I've definitely got to be smarter. No confidence is taken away from me. I'm going to keep letting it fly.
There's things, it can go either way. They got the better of me today. That's just the NFL. I'm blessed enough to come out of here with a dub, and my confidence isn't going nowhere. I'm going to keep shooting it, keep letting it fly.
And I think that's what makes me great is that those times where you either get away with it or you don't or you make the play, you don't. I've been blessed enough to have plays where nobody talks about it because they don't make the play.
But this game they made the plays and that's not going to skew my confidence one bit. I'm going to keep being me. I'm a very confident, not only in myself but how we're playing as offense and the whole. And I'm not going to let my emotions and things get in front of that.
And this is football. This is not tennis or anything like that. I'm out there with 11 guys. Those guys have always picked me up. I appreciate that.
And I'm still learning as I'm going and I'm really blessed to be able to do it with such a special group of guys. Now my confidence is still there. I'll keep doing what I do.
Q. After the touchdown to Tank, the crowd (indiscernible) MVP chant. I don't know if you could hear that. What was your reaction?
C.J. STROUD: I really didn't hear it, but I appreciate it. That's cool. Hopefully I keep playing good and keep putting wins together. And that's definitely of course my goal not just this year but for every year.
But at the end of the day I'm focused on one play, one game at a time. And knowing how people are so wishy-washy, I don't know if I'm still in that race. I'm just kidding. I'm kidding, (laughter).
But I think this game it's a testament of who is going to not blink and who is just going to keep going. For me that's the adversity I've been dealt, not only in my football career but in life.
I'm just going to keep going. I think I put another great performance together. Was blessed enough to have a great game throwing the ball, but of course you've got to eliminate the turnovers.
But I appreciate the fans doing that and appreciate them. We're going to need them for sure next week. Jacksonville has a great team. Played them twice, it's hard to beat a team twice. We gotta bring our A game. Their energy, definitely helps. Appreciate you all, God bless.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports