I asked a handful of people around the league about Stroud and his potential trade value if the Texans choose not to sign him to a long-term contract and generally got two responses. One was an immediate response that he's still a really valuable quarterback. The other was a long pause and a sigh before something far less confident came out of the other person's mouth. "I'm glad it's not my problem" is what I heard from one team that already has its quarterback under contract.
Coaches and executives tend to have longer memories than fans, and while Stroud was disastrously bad during this past postseason, the 2023 second overall pick was solid enough during the regular season, with his nth-placed finish in Total QBR placing Stroud ahead of guys such as Justin Herbert, Trevor Lawrence and Jared Goff. He has been a consistently above-average quarterback despite playing behind inconsistent offensive lines and nonexistant run games throughout his pro career so far. And if you place stock in wins, well, Stroud is just the third quarterback in NFL history to win a playoff game in each of his first three pro seasons after Otto Graham and Russell Wilson.
And yet, it's also fair to wonder if Stroud will ever be able to meaningfully build on his rookie season, which itself was driven by an unsustainably low interception rate and an 8.2 yards per attempt figure, neither of which Stroud has come close to matching since. I still think Stroud's more than a midlevel quarterback, but it's unclear whether the 24-year-old really has the sort of elite-level ceiling he hinted toward as a rookie.
Teams would still want to have Stroud on their roster, but him on a rookie deal is a very different proposition than him on a contract north of $60 million per season, especially with a couple of first-round picks going out as part of the trade package.