The leadup to the NFL draft may be smokescreen season, but it appears there may be an actual fire in regard to whom the Texans will take with the No. 2 overall pick this year.
The consensus projection among scouts, media members and draftniks for much of the 2023 pre-draft process was that Houston would select the top available quarterback available: Alabama's Bryce Young or Ohio State's C.J. Stroud.
With Young rocketing to the top of oddsmakers' boards on April 10 — supplanting Stroud in the process — the thought was Houston would simply take the Buckeyes prospect as the primary building block in first-year coach DeMeco Ryans' team. But numerous reports from across the NFL landscape have suggested the Texans have soured on Stroud.
Those rumors certainly raised eyebrows, as scouts generally considered Stroud to be not only among the safest prospects of the draft, but also the best pure passer: a happy medium of Young, whose cerebral approach overcame his slight frame, and Florida's Anthony Richardson, a physically dominant prospect who needs to clean up his mechanics.
Stroud did nothing to hurt his draft stock at the NFL combine in March, turning in one of the best visits to Indianapolis of any quarterback prospect. But recent odds have suggested there may be truth to the notion Houston will pass on Stroud with the No. 2 pick overall — something that was previously an unthinkable notion.
MORE: Tracking latest draft news, rumors for C.J. Stroud
With that, The Sporting News breaks down the timeline of Stroud's declining draft stock, and why the latest odds suggest he may still be on the board after Houston picks second in the draft:
Texans draft odds 2023
According to the latest odds, courtesy of BetMGM, Stroud has fallen behind Alabama's Will Anderson in the odds to go No. 2 overall:
- Will Anderson (+200)
- C.J. Stroud (+250)
- Will Levis (+275)
- Tyree Wilson (+325)
Why do those odds matter? Because oddsmakers often have inside information that has helped them reliably predict how teams will act in regard to their respective drafts. Look no further than the NBA, where real-time shifting odds in the hours leading up to the 2022 draft indicated the Magic would take North Carolina's Paolo Banchero instead of Auburn's Jabari Smith Jr. with the No. 1 overall pick.
According to the Action Network, Smith — widely mocked to be the first player off the board — opened as the favorite at -10000 odds. On the day of the draft, however, Banchero jumped from a +400 underdog to a -260 favorite. Sure enough, Orlando selected the Tar Heel first overall, while Smith eventually went third to the Rockets.
With the 2023 NFL Draft still six days from starting, there is plenty of time for the odds to shift back in Stroud's favor. But for now, it seems as if the Texans may actually prefer to take someone else over the Ohio State signal-caller.
MORE: NFL Draft 2023 Market Report: Bryce Young now massive favorite to go No. 1
C.J. Stroud draft rumors timeline
Stroud was the odds-on favorite to go No. 1 to the Panthers as early as April 10. But his draft stock has taken a considerable hit with compounding reports that Young replaced him atop the odds board to go No. 1 and that Houston wasn't as interested in Stroud as it is in the Crimson Tide prospect.
An April 13 report from TexansDaily's Coty Davis indicated Ryans was "leaning heavily" toward Anderson with the No. 2 pick — a move that on the surface didn't make sense, considering Houston would be better off trading back with a quarterback-needy team than taking a defensive player.
MORE: Predicting where Stroud will land in NFL draft
Four days later, Houston-based draft analyst Lance Zierlein of NFL.com reported the Texans were struggling to trade the No. 2 pick because other teams "don't covet Stroud like the public thinks." If that were the case, then it makes sense a team wouldn't trade up with Houston for Stroud; nor would they move up to take Anderson, even if he was considered the top defensive pick of the draft.
(That scenario would instead benefit the Cardinals, who at No. 3 could stoke a bidding war among other teams hoping to jump the Colts at No. 4 to have their preferred selection between Stroud and Richardson.)
Fox college football analyst Brady Quinn on Wednesday suggested a possible reason for Stroud falling down draft boards was that he "ghosted" the Manning Passing Academy ahead of the 2022 college football season. That report has created consternation among his contemporaries, with ESPN's Ryan Clark calling it "gossip."
On Friday, a report from Bob McGinn of GoLongTD.com provided more clarity as to why Stroud's draft stock may be falling: a reported 18th-percentile score on the S2 cognition test, which purports to measure information processing and reaction speed — important areas for signal-callers.
That is among the lowest reported scores of the 2023 class of QBs, including Young (98th percentile), Fresno State's Jake Haener (96th), Kentucky’s Will Levis (93rd), BYU's Jaren Hall and Houston’s Clayton Tune (84th) and Richardson (79th).
MORE: Ohio State-only NFL mock draft 2023
Brandon Ally, co-founder of S2, told The Athletic the average percentile score among quarterbacks who take the test is in the 68th percentile. He also told Pro Football Focus earlier in April to take leaked scores with a grain of salt, adding that the top quarterbacks generally scored well in the S2:
"We have seen, 'Hey, so and so scored the highest in the class, or the highest ever, and so and so scored low.' And it's like, 'Yeah, that's not true,'" Ally told Pro Football Focus. "But with that being said, I will say that this class as a whole, all the guys in the discussion, have scored really, really well."
Regardless, it is one of several reports and rumors around Stroud that suggest there may actually be something to rumblings of the Texans passing on him at No. 2 in the draft.
