CJ Stroud looks absolutely amazing and on a team that I would say is on par with our roster at best.
Poles said all along he needed to be blown away to stick at #1 and take a QB last year. By the time the combine rolled around he all but announced to the world the pick was for sale. I understand Fields showed flashes towards the end of last year and that played into that decision.
Fast forward to now and Stroud is blowing everyone away.
I think it’s fair to question what our staff missed on Stroud to be out on him immediately and whether or not we should be worried about them making the next decision on who our QB is.
20/20 hindsight – I would much rather have Stroud instead of the DJ Moore package and it’s not even close. Give me a franchise QB and figure out the rest of the line and WRs after that.
I don’t. For his faults, I think that was one situation that Poles handled perfectly at the time.
He improved the O Line, brought in a legit #1 receiver to give Fields weapons and improve protection (granted injuries on the o-line killed that for a good portion if the season and there is still work to do, but we’ve seen the improvement recently as guys are getting healthy).
Then got that future first, which gave him a Fields insurance policy in a draft that most analysts agreed at the time is a better QB prospect draft overall. Looking at the context at the time it was an extremely sound move by him.