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Last week, the Sporting News wrote about Texans QB CJ Stroud and the team’s decision not to extend his contract at the end of the young QB’s 3rd NFL season:
Why doesn’t C.J. Stroud have a contract extension?
The reality is that the Texans are playing a bit of wait-and-see.
“Why? Well for starters, do you remember the last time we all watched Stroud play? His performance in the team’s divisional round playoff game in New England was season-endingly poor,” ESPN’s Dan Graziano wrote in a new article on Tuesday. “His showing the week before in a wild-card playoff victory over the Steelers wasn’t very good, either. Stroud was Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2023, and he has won at least one playoff game in each of his three NFL seasons, so there’s a lot to like. But the Texans haven’t seen marked improvement from him in Years 2 or 3, he missed games because of injury last season and the playoff flops are hard to ignore.”
The tough part at the QB position is that there’s no guarantee that the grass is greener elsewhere. That’s part of the reason pretty much every young quarterback gets that big extension.
A team knows what it has in the building, and risking a move in a different direction comes with a lot of uncertainty. There are only so many good QBs. Sometimes you end up with none of them.
So at this point, there’s still a decent chance Stroud gets an extension. It’s just not a given, and it hasn’t happened yet.
A lot of NFL analysts and fans have talked about parallels between the careers of Stroud and Jayden Daniels. Both had explosive rookie seasons; each took a step back in his sophomore season, though Daniels’ injury-plagued 2025 campaign was much more disappointing than Stroud’s 2024, which saw him play in 17 regular season games and 2 playoff games.
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With the Texans taking a ‘wait & see’ approach to Stroud’s contract — they did exercise his 5th-year option — after he led the team to 3 consecutive playoff berths, what can Washington fans expect from the Commanders front office at the end of the ‘26 season?
Is it a given that Jayden Daniels will get the massive contract extension in the 2027 offseason that has been assumed to be in cards since the day he was drafted?
Dak Prescott’s deal, signed in 2024 at an average annual value of $60m, is still the top contract in the NFL.
Last year, the Bills signed Josh Allen to a 6-year, $330 million extension, including a record-breaking $250 million in total guaranteed money, but the average of $55m per year did not break the AAV record.
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Following the end of the ‘26 season, Caleb Williams, Drake Maye and Jayden Daniels will all hit the window — the first offseason in which NFL rules allow for a contract extension to be signed. CJ Stroud, will, of course, be a year ‘overdue’ by that time, so the offseason headlines next spring & summer could be dominated by questions about who gets how much, and when. That dynamic could send quarterback salaries and guaranteed money skyrocketing into never-before-seen territory — especially in the context of dramatic and ongoing league-wide increases in the salary cap.
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