C.J. Stroud and Texans rip S2 test, says it should have no bearing on drafting a QB

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He became one of the best passers in program history, steeled by the hard lessons he’d endured off the field. “My story is different than others,” Stroud says. More lessons would wait. He turned pro, then days before the draft, a report leaked that he’d flunked the S2 Cognition test, a set of exams that claim to “make the undefinable qualities of top athletes quantifiable.”

At first, he seethed. Then he shook it off.

“What’s a man gonna do to me?” Stroud asks now. “I fear God. I don’t fear no situation, I don’t fear a team, I don’t fear an owner. What’s so bad that’s gonna happen? I’m gonna drop to No. 10? Look at my perspective. I’m gonna get drafted regardless of that dang test.”

His play thus far has offered a damning indictment of his reported S2 results, the proof right there, each and every Sunday, that his talent and ability is something a test still can’t appropriately measure. “You don’t pick guys based on a test,” says Ryans, “especially a test we don’t even ascribe to. The most important thing about a quarterback to me is what his teammates say about him. That’s stuff you can’t fake.”

Ask Stroud how he’d evaluate a quarterback coming out of college, and he already has it mapped out.

“I’d never draft a QB who didn’t play another sport growing up,” he says. “I’d never draft a QB without talking to his teammates first. And I’d have to sit down with him and watch film. I would make him explain where the rules stop and where the instincts kick in.”

No tests, he says.

“Look, I can show you my high school report card. I’m not a dumb kid,” he says. “I’m not gonna lie, I was lazy in school, I got what I could so I could play football. But I always had over a 3.0 GPA because that was the standard in my house. That was my mom’s rule.”

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