Is C.J. Stroud's early NFL success a surprise? Not if you know anything about his past.
Houston Texans rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud threw for 470 yards and five touchdowns last week. That was impressive. But it might not be the most impressive thing Stroud has done. Stroud's journey actually begins years ago but I want to start with something more recent. Let me explain. Please pay close attention.
So much about that big day on the field starts months ago off of it with the bloated nonsense that is the NFL's draft process. Stroud spent weeks leading up to it answering questions about leaked test results. It's called the S2 Cognitive Test and measures various football adjacent variants that the NFL believes can be indicative of how a player will process the remarkable speeds and decision-making required to play in the NFL.
The leak showed (maybe) that Stroud performed poorly on the S2 which forced Stroud and his camp into damage control. The entire thing was silly and stupid but many things about the NFL's draft process are silly and stupid.
It was reported that Stroud had the lowest score of any of the quarterbacks in that draft class. However, S2 co-founder, Brandon Ally, seemed to insinuate that some of the leaked scores were inaccurate, and while not saying directly that Stroud's score was, he definitely seemed to insinuate it. He also said that some of the leaks may have been purposefully misleading for "narrative purposes."
"The day that those leaks happened, my phone was blowing up from general managers and our attorney," Ally told the Pat McAfee Show. "We can't speak on specifics. What I will say is the list of scores that I have seen, two of those scores are not accurate. They're not accurate at all. Some of the reason could be for narrative purposes. The other reason is that they don't have context, so somebody could have gotten a list of very early scores."
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"One of the particular athletes on that list I know had a difficult time making his way to the all-star game, things were delayed," Ally explained. "He was in high demand. He was hungry, tired, it was 11 p.m., didn't want to do it. He was frustrated. We administered the test because we're asked to. We knew at that point in time, hey, we're going to get you again. We'll get you at your Pro Day, your 30 visit. We did that and his score is significantly higher than what it was being reported in the media. I'm not saying that it was C.J. Stroud. But for context purposes, the scores that were leaked, there are a couple of them that are inaccurate and there needs to be context behind that."
"It's football," Stroud said at the time, "I'm not a test taker."
It's entirely possible (and it's happened before in NFL draft history) that fake numbers, or at least numbers without proper context, were leaked to portray Stroud as not intelligent, hoping he'd fall in the draft to another team, maybe even the team that leaked the results in the first place. If that happened it's remarkably nefarious.
At the time, it did significant damage to the image of Stroud, and it's possible it was all untrue.
What has Stroud done since those leaks? He was drafted second overall. At one point this season, Stroud became only the sixth quarterback in league history to throw for at least 1,200 yards with zero interceptions in his first four regular season games. The others? It's not a bad list: Aaron Rodgers (2020), Patrick Mahomes (2018 and 2019), Drew Brees (2018), Tom Brady (2015 and 2017) and Peyton Manning (2013).
The draft process reeks of wonkiness, an overreliance on goofy testing, and tactical leaks. Instead of becoming a cautionary tale, however, Stroud developed into a remarkable quarterback savant. He's decoding and deciphering defenses with the kind of experience you see with veteran quarterbacks. Let Stroud cook? He's Top Chef, rookie version.
“As a rookie, I would say that he’s really good because he knows when and why, which I think is rare for a rookie,” Texans offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik said. “A lot of times — like in college, he definitely did it. Without a doubt, it showed up on his college tape. It was really neat to see him do it on his (top) 30 visit and our Zooms and stuff with him.
"You could tell he had a good understanding in college of why he was trying to look somebody off, and then that’s only grown since he’s gotten to the NFL and growing within our scheme, where I think initially when we first got to camp, you go through this period where you get so used to doing it that it’s a little too much and then you bring it back to balance it out and then it starts growing again. ‘Oh, now I understand on this concept — this is why I may want to put this defender here’ and it just keeps building and building. Obviously, you get in a game playing situation, and you attack specific coverages and specific defenders — he’s been awesome in that regard."
These are the initial things you need to know about Stroud. There's something else you must know. It's another thing he's overcome to reach this point.
His father, Coleridge Bernard Stroud, in 2016 got 38 years to life after pleading guilty to charges of carjacking, kidnapping and robbery. Stroud was in middle school when his father first went to prison. He's currently at Folsom State Prison in California.
After throwing for almost 500 yards, Stroud used part of his postgame press conference to address his father's situation.
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“Our criminal justice system isn’t right, and it’s something that I need to probably be a little more vocal about, because what he’s going through is not right,” he said. “He called me this week, and we got to talk, and I’m praying for the situation and a reform, and the people with reform are helping me a little bit. But I think just letting it be known that it’s not just my dad’s situation, but the whole criminal justice system is corrupt.”
Don't confuse this part of Stroud's story with the tired narratives you often see about Black men and absent fathers that are full of stereotypes and falsities about the Black family. It also shouldn't be forgotten or overlooked that there are victims of what Stroud was convicted of doing. No one is sugarcoating that.
There were moments when Stroud could have faltered. Other players in his position have. The leaked test scores could have led to him lashing out. His father being imprisoned when he was so young could have possibly derailed his football future before it even started. There could have been disasters. But here he is. On the grandest of stages and performing well.
This is the Stroud, all of him, that we should know.
