C.J. Stroud slams critics after reported low cognition test result: 'I'm not a test-taker, I play football'

Seemingly every year, there is a top NFL Draft prospect who sees his profile dip for reasons that have very little to do with football.

This year's lucky winner is C.J. Stroud, the former Ohio State quarterback who was once the favorite to go first overall and is now facing questions about his cognitive ability due to an allegedly erroneous report on a test result.

The controversy began Friday, when former Green Bay Packers beat writer Bob McGinn reported on the results of the S2 Cognition test, which has apparently replaced the long-maligned Wonderlic test as the way NFL teams evaluate the mental abilities of prospects. 

The results, as reported, did not reflect favorably on Stroud. Alabama's Bryce Young reportedly scored 98% and Florida's Anthony Richardson was 79%, but Stroud's context-less number was reportedly 18%. That number was low enough to scare some personnel, including one NFL executive who told McGinn it was "incredibly terrible. He’s going to be off [some team’s] boards. He will not be picked by those teams.”

Stroud, a two-time Heisman finalist who threw 81 touchdowns in two seasons, got his chance to respond Wednesday while speaking with reporters through an NFL service project in the Kansas City area. As you might expect, he had some issues with how he is being perceived in this draft class, via Scott Fowler of the Charlotte Observer.

Stroud's answer:

"I'm not a test-taker, I play football. At the end of the day, I don't got nothing to prove to nobody, so I'm not going to sit here and explain how I process football. The people who are making the picks know what I can do, so that's all that matters to me. There's a whole bunch of people who know how to coach better, who know how to play quarterback better, who know how to do everything on social media, but the man in the arena, that's what's tough.

I know what I can do, I know what I can process. If I'm not the smartest quarterback in this draft, I know I'm one of the smartest quarterbacks in the NFL when I step in there tomorrow, so I have confidence in myself. I don't think you can play at Ohio State and not be smart. I don't got nothing to prove to nobody, man. At the end of the day, if you don't trust and believe in me, all I can tell you is to watch this."

Stroud has extra reason to blast the report, as it might not even be accurate.

S2 Cognition co-founder: Reported C.J. Stroud test results are 'not true'

S2 Cognition co-founder Brandon Ally appeared on a Pro Football Focus podcast to address the test results being leaked and indicated what had been reported simply isn't accurate:

"Just to address the quarterback thing, I would say that we're obviously aware of scores being leaked and we're not sure where that's coming from, but I will say take some of those with a grain of salt. We have seen, 'Hey, so-and-so scored the highest grade of the class or the highest ever,' and, 'So-and-so scored low.' That's not true. 

With that being said, I will say that this class as a whole, all of the guys in the discussion have scored really, really well."

So both Stroud and the guy behind S2 Cognition are telling you to disregard Stroud's reported S2 Cognition test results.

All of this makes up a story emblematic of the worst aspects of pre-draft discourse, where a test that 99% of NFL fans had never heard of last week is allowed to drown out two years of elite quarterback play for one of the most storied programs in the country, all while the results of that test, which no one really understands, are being allegedly misreported.

The 2023 NFL Draft is scheduled for Thursday at 8 p.m. ET in Kansas City. It can't come soon enough.