CJ Stroud should be the number one overall pick in 2023

On the off chance that rumors are to be believed and Ohio State quarterback CJ Stroud is, for some reason, falling down draft boards, one team is going to get an absolute steal. It wouldn’t at all be a surprise if one of the teams picking outside the top five happen to be spreading these rumors so he could fall right into their lap.

Stroud was a starter for the Buckeyes for two years and he absolutely lit it up. He had arguably the best two-year stretch of any quarterback in college history.

He played 25 games, passing for 8123 yards on 69% completion while throwing 85 touchdowns to just 12 interceptions on his way to being a back-to-back Heisman Trophy finalist. For context, quarterback Bryce Young is another candidate to go number one overall in the 2023 NFL draft 38 games in three years and had 80 touchdown passes. Although both quarterbacks are highly rated in their own regard, the sudden fall in draft boards for Stroud is a little overblown.

However, one factor that could negatively impact Stroud’s stock is his score on the new S2 cognition test where he scored the lowest of all quarterbacks (18% out of 100%). Although the co-founder of the test came out and said a few of the leaked results were very inaccurate. So this is likely a smear tactic by one of the teams to get him to fall as low as possible so they can have a chance to draft their franchise quarterback.

Regardless of ‘test scores’ and all of these other meaningless narratives, CJ Stroud is going to make any team he goes on better. He has the ability to navigate the pocket very well and is extremely accurate throwing the ball into tight windows. A pure passer and has the potential to be a day-one starter at the next level. This is a deep draft at the quarterback position, but it’s hard to make a case for anyone to go ahead of Stroud.