Mina Kimes raises concerns with C.J. Stroud's 2024 season - "He's beginning to be the new Justin Herbert"
Mina Kimes has given her opinion about the way C.J. Stroud is playing and compared him to Justin Herbert. Elaborating on what she meant, she said that every week she watches the Texans quarterback and he has some of the best throws around the league, but it is not having the desired impact. The ESPN analyst said on The Mina Kimes Show,
"Here's my fear with C.J. Stroud. He's beginning to be the new Justin Herbert for me, where every week on tape, I'm like, 'This dude is putting out some of the best throws I've seen of any quarterback, and yet everything around him is crumbling.'"
She added that the primary reason for that is a run game that has stopped giving the kind of returns that Houston fans would expect. That is constantly putting them in third-and-long positions. Mina Kimes believes that this team has a good enough quarterback to challenge for the Super Bowl in 2024, but the support around him on offense coming into the halfway mark of the season is missing. She added,
"He's constantly in third and long. They're constantly running the ball with no success and early downs. I am starting to really worry, because we're about halfway into the season. This should be a Super Bowl team, but... it feels like the infrastructure around him is not good enough right now."
Mina Kimes comments highlight similarities between C.J. Stroud and Justin Herbert
Mina Kimes' comments highlight how C.J. Stroud and Justin Herbert share similarities: both over their careers and during this season. The Chargers quarterback was the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2020 and there was genuine belief that Los Angeles could challenge the Chiefs both in the division and in the playoffs. That never materialized as the team around the quarterback never gave him the needed support.
The fear Mina Kimes is alluding to is that something similar might be happening with the Texans quarterback too. He is the reigning NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year and some people have him as a future Super Bowl winner. However, the talent around him should be enough to make them challengers this season but that is not coalescing around as needed.
Even this season, both C.J. Stroud and Justin Herbert had a 2-0 start. Since then, they have had a couple of losses against teams that are likely to make the playoffs. The parallels between the players are striking.