Bill Simmons might kill off his weekly NFL picks segment because he keeps losing. Perhaps The Ringer founder should also retire from making any proclamations about NFL quarterbacks. His Patriots homerism aside, this is the same guy who touted Mac Jones as an MVP candidate prior to the 2022 NFL season.
While Simmons has since admitted that Jones may not be the guy — and doubled down on that take following another New England loss on Sunday — another take of his resurfaced over the weekend; and boy is it a doozy.
The day before the 2023 NFL Draft, when everyone and their mother was piling on C.J. Stroud, Simmons officially “locked in” the Ohio State product as a “bust.”
While Stroud is only eight games into his NFL career, he sure looks better than the “bust” Simmons proclaimed him to be on April 26, 2023. On Sunday, Stroud led the Texans to a thrilling 39-37 victory over the Tampa Buccaneers. He completed 71.4 percent of his passes for 470 yards and a career-high five passing touchdowns. It was a historic day for the 22-year-old Stroud, who led his first career game-winning drive behind an NFL single-game passing record for a rookie.
He is the best quarterback from the 2023 rookie class and is the clear front-runner to win the Offensive Rookie of the Year. Houston has found its guy, as the Texans appear to have hit a home run with its selection of Stroud. He’s not even 50 percent of the way through his rookie campaign, and he’s being anointed as a top quarterback in this league, which is ironic considering Simmons anointed him a bust before he even took a snap in the league.
Name a good QB with two initials 🤨 … you can't.@BillSimmons is calling it now: C.J. Stroud will be a bust. pic.twitter.com/Sxwgx1UBJP
— #RingerNFL (@ringernfl) April 26, 2023
“Just from levitating above this, which is being unencumbered with my thoughts and baggage of things, I’m just like, this guy doesn’t have it,” Simmons said over six months ago. “His name is C.J., he went to Ohio State. There’s rumors that he’s a dick. C.J.’s your quarterback? I just don’t see it. How many great initial quarterbacks have we had? Can you name me the great two-letter initial quarterbacks? I immediately go to E.J. Manuel and A.J. Feeley. It’s just, I don’t see it.
“I don’t like that he dropped. He was in that 1-2 range, and it’s like where is he gonna go? Why is he dropping? Everybody’s getting under the hood and they don’t like what they see. He feels a little busted to me.”
Simmons has since been chided for this strawman argument.
It’s kind of like arguing that whichever team with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft shouldn’t draft Caleb Williams because he’s a USC quarterback. Do we really think E.J. Manuel or Mark Sanchez has much to do with how C.J. Stroud, or Caleb Williams, will or has performed in the NFL?
Chided might not be the right word, as those in the quote tweets largely questioned if Simmons watches the games.
Has Simmons ever had a good take? https://t.co/3W2T8c0AJ5
— Actual Cowboy (@titledrought) November 6, 2023
https://twitter.com/tweetless21/status/1721315990284456242?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1721315990284456242%7Ctwgr%5E0b42771184d1199ee02e6f8dedd109201c913480%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpublish.twitter.com%2F%3Fquery%3Dhttps3A2F2Ftwitter.com2Ftweetless212Fstatus2F1721315990284456242widget%3DTweet
99th percentile football watcher Bill Simmons
Incredible analysis we're getting from this man, we should all be so grateful https://t.co/Np4Ppo64nc
— The r/BillSimmons Podcast 🎙️ (@rBillSimmonsPod) November 5, 2023
It appears that Simmons got word that his old Stroud take was making the rounds on Twitter/X and addressed it on Monday’s episode of his The Bill Simmons Podcast.
“I remember I said before the draft, me and [Benjamin] Solak and Danny Kelly did some draft stuff, and I know nothing,” Simmons said. “I barely follow college football…I was just like, C.J. Stroud, I don’t see it. I don’t see a quarterback with an initial name [being good]. We’ve never had one. We’ve had A.J. Feeley and A.J. McCarron. I was just like, we’ve never had it…P.F. Chang, he was great that year.”
Simmons said that after two weeks of watching him in the NFL, he knew that Stroud had it.
While he can move the goalposts all he wants, Simmons admitted on the most recent episode of his podcast that he doesn’t watch college football — not exactly a new revelation — further proving the point that there’s no need for him to comment on quarterbacks until they take a snap in the NFL.
It just goes to show that Simmons having egg on his face isn’t exactly a rare occurrence these days.
[The Bill Simmons Podcast, @ringernfl on X]
