If you started Texans QB C.J. Stroud in Sunday's win over the 49ers, then he rewarded you with his second-best fantasy outing of the season -- despite missing lead WR Nico Collins. Stroud threw for 318 yards, 2 TDs, and 1 INT on 30-of-39 passing. That not only reset his season high for passing yardage by 71; it was also his first 300-yard game since Week 4 of last season and just his second since November 2023. The game also produced Stroud's third 100+ passer rating among Houston's past four games, which tells us something about both sides of Sunday's matchup.
Let's start with Stroud: The Houston QB has posted three solid-to-strong fantasy lines and four meh-to-poor outings in seven games this season.
The good ones have come against:
The Titans aren't good at much of anything right now. The Ravens' defensive struggles got exacerbated for that Week 5 meeting by myriad injuries. S Kyle Hamilton, CB Marlon Humphrey, CB Chidobe Awuzie, and LB Roquan Smith all went inactive for that game.
So Stroud delivered worthwhile fantasy numbers in two clearly good spots. And that brings us to the 49ers.
San Francisco sits right around mid-pack in fantasy points allowed to QBs, even looking like a slightly negative matchup by our adjusted fantasy points allowed. But a closer look reveals otherwise.
The 49ers have limited the scoring of:
Three of those guys have proved volatile at best in their performance this season. (And the other is Darnold.)
The Niners' other four games included:
San Francisco opened the season with defensive questions and has lost its best two defensive players -- Nick Bosa and Fred Warner -- along the way. sunday also found the Niners missing edge players Bryce Huff and Yetur Gross-Matos.
This is at best a neutral matchup for QB scoring going forward, and probably a positive matchup.
Stroud shouldn't be in your starting plans for a Week 9 home date with Denver. But matchups with Jacksonville and Tennessee the following two weeks make him potentially usable.
Overall, though, I wouldn't plan to use Stroud as a regular starter.
The 49ers, meanwhile, should present a favorable matchup the next three weeks for (in order):
We'll see where each guy lands in the weekly QB rankings as those weeks arrive.
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