INGLEWOOD — As the Texans’ plane descended upon Los Angeles ahead of their Week 1 game against the Rams, C.J. Stroud’s eyes gazed downward. Landmarks that signified his childhood, fields he competed at throughout high school, caught his eye, he said.

Stroud is forever indebted to the area that raised him.

“I love where I’m from,” the Rancho Cucamonga native said in the hollows of SoFi Stadium after his first NFL game in LA. “California has really backed me in a lot of ways.”

For better or worse, Stroud’s local upbringing shaped him into a jaded 23-year-old, a third-year quarterback who might as well be a veteran after all he’s overcome. At 13, Stroud became the man of his household. In high school, a two-bedroom apartment at the storage facility his mom, Kim, worked at was where he and

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