The Houston Texans invested the No. 2 pick in the NFL Draft on Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud, but that doesn’t mean they’ll still hand him the keys to the car.
Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans said Tuesday that Stroud and last year’s starter, Davis Mills, will compete in training camp for the starting quarterback job.
“We’ll see where their process goes in training camp and see as the competition continues,” Ryans said after the opening of the mandatory minicamp (via ESPN). “We’ll see who separates themselves.”
The two players have been rotating reps in OTAs thus far, and Ryans insisted there was no significance to Stroud running the first team on Tuesday.
“They’ve been rotating each week,” Ryans said. “As you guys came to practice, you’ve seen we’ve rotated those guys each week, and this just happened to be the week that C.J. was running with the 1s.”
Still, a team doesn’t drop a No. 2 overall pick on a quarterback to sit him on the bench. So Stroud would seem to have a leg up on Mills, who has started 26 games in the past two seasons. The 24-year-old Q.B. has averaged 231 yards per game with 33 touchdowns and 25 interceptions.
While Mills is a known quantity, Ryans said he likes what he’s seen so far from Stroud.
“The best thing I’ve seen about C.J. with his improvement and his growth is he doesn’t make the same mistake twice,” Ryans said. “He learns from his mistakes; he puts those behind him, and he finds a way to continue to improve and get better.”
[ESPN]
