HOUSTON (AP) – C.J. Stroud found Nico Collins for a touchdown pass on his second drive Saturday in Houston\u2019s preseason win over the Carolina Panthers.<\/p>\n
But he was unhappy with himself because he overthrew him on a deep ball on the Texans\u2019 first drive, which was his preseason debut.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s one of a kind, man,\u201d Stroud said. \u201cHe\u2019s a unicorn, fast, strong … route-running, release at line of scrimmage \u2014 he has it all. So it\u2019s my job to connect with him and I owe him one from today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite that misfire the Texans (1-1) still came away with a 20-3 win.<\/p>\n
Stroud, who sat out in last week\u2019s 20-10 loss at Minnesota, played two series Saturday, going 6 for 8 for 44 yards. The Texans punted on their first possession before Stroud found Collins on the 5-yard touchdown pass on fourth down to cap the second drive and make it 7-0.<\/p>\n
Collins is coming off consecutive 1,000-yard seasons after he led the Texans with 68 receptions for 1,006 yards and seven touchdowns despite missing five games with an injury.<\/p>\n
Nick Chubb ran five times for 25 yards in his Texans\u2019 debut after spending his first seven seasons in Cleveland. Chubb played with the starters with Joe Mixon out recovering from a foot injury he sustained this offseason.<\/p>\n
Stroud, who has led the Texans to the postseason in both of his first two seasons, has a new offensive coordinator this year in Nick Caley after the former Patriots and Rams assistant was hired this offseason following the firing of Bobby Slowik.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was great, he\u2019s still learning a lot,\u201d Stroud said. \u201cFirst time play caller, he handled it great. He\u2019s very communicative. He loves to wire guys up and bring juice and I think it\u2019s a great thing for offense and I\u2019m excited to work with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carolina\u2019s Bryce Young, the first overall pick in the 2023 draft when Stroud was taken second, failed to move the offense in two drives. He was 0 for 2 and was sacked once Saturday after directing the offense for two drives with a TD pass in last week\u2019s 30-10 loss to Cleveland.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, for us 1\u2019s you want a different result,\u201d Young said. \u201cIt (stinks), but that\u2019s preseason football. You kind of get that sample size. Obviously, you want to go well early, get it done fast. We didn\u2019t get it done today. Of course, we will go watch film tomorrow and go from that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Young won\u2019t get any more work this preseason with coach Dave Canales saying he wouldn\u2019t play his starters in the final preseason game next week for the Panthers (0-2).<\/p>\n
Andy Dalton replaced Young and was 2 of 4 for 22 yards before leaving with what Canales said was a right elbow sprain. Canales said they\u2019d know more about the injury after further testing Sunday.<\/p>\n
Canales wasn\u2019t too worried about Saturday\u2019s results, but talked to his team about being better.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of good work out there,\u201d he said. \u201cTo me, to sum it up, it was a day of almosts. I just kind of challenged the group like: \u2018Are we going to be almost good? Are we going to make the plays when they\u2019re there to be made?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Rookie Ryan Fitzgerald\u2019s 52-yard field goal cut the lead to 7-3 about two minutes before halftime.<\/p>\n
Ka\u2019imi Fairbairn made a 41-yard field goal just before halftime and added a 35-yard kick early in the third quarter to push the lead to 13-3.<\/p>\n
The Texans intercepted third-string quarterback Jack Plummer on consecutive drives in the second half. Damon Arnette grabbed the second one and three plays later the Texans made it 20-3 when British Brooks scored on a 1-yard run.<\/p>\n
Arnette, a first-round pick in 2020, is attempting a comeback after his career was derailed by legal troubles and he played just 13 games over two seasons before being released by the Raiders. He hasn\u2019t appeared in a regular-season NFL game since 2021 and last played for the UFL\u2019s Houston Roughnecks.<\/p>\n
Sitting out<\/p>\n
Carolina cornerback Jaycee Horn didn\u2019t play because of a thumb injury and left guard Damien Lewis also sat out because of a shoulder injury.<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
Panthers: Wrap up the preseason Thursday night when they host Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n
Texans: End their preseason Saturday at Detroit.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON (AP) – C.J. Stroud found Nico Collins for a touchdown pass on his second drive Saturday in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2075],"tags":[235,260,2567,7,253,6,236,46945,9],"class_list":{"0":"post-293950","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-carolina-panthers","8":"tag-carolina","9":"tag-carolina-panthers","10":"tag-carolinapanthers","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-houston-texans","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-panthers","15":"tag-preseason-football","16":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115041093923303467","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}