C.J. Stroud's bizarre pregame routine leaves Texans fans scratching their heads

Preseason games bring back football in action after a long break, but they are popularly not appealing for the results. The Houston Texans took on the Las Vegas Raiders in a preseason matchup, but somehow CJ Stroud's warmup session got the attention instead of the game itself.

It was his first live game action of the summer after sitting out the previous week's contest against the Los Angeles Chargers.

CJ Stroud's "funny" eye warm-up exercise steals the spotlight

Before the Texans' preseason game against the Las Vegas Raiders on August 20, 2026, cameras caught Stroud performing an unusual-looking warm-up routine. Standing on the field in a Texans shirt with earbuds in, he held both thumbs up in front of him and rapidly shifted his eyes left and right between them.

He then moved his thumbs into a vertical position and tracked them up and down with the same quick eye movements. Stroud finished with a few other hand gestures and a thumbs-up near his face.

What Stroud was doing is a form of saccades training, also called horizontal and vertical saccades. Saccades are the fast, precise eye movements that allow you to jump your gaze from one target to another. For a quarterback, sharp visual skills are very important. Rapid eye movements help a passer scan the field, locate receivers, track defensive movements, and process information quickly under pressure. Some athletes deliberately warm up their eyes the same way they warm up their arms or legs.

While the exercise meant serious business for CJ Stroud, the visual representation of the moment was comical to fans who didn't miss the chance to be satirical about it.

Fans have a field day reacting to CJ Stroud's eye warm-up

When the clip of C.J. Stroud’s pregame eye drill hit social media on August 20, 2026, the reaction was immediate, loud, and mostly merciless. Within hours the short video had racked up millions of views, and the replies poured in. The dominant tone was pure trolling but some pointed out that the drill was a legitimate saccades exercise used in concussion screening and cognitive training. 

"I think it has to do with using his eyes??? Never seen this before lol," a user wrote.

"He's practicing holding the clipboard once he comes out after the first series," a fan commented. 

"Dudes looking at p-rn magazines in the 80’s like," someone said sarcastically.

"He's just doing a sobriety test, after asking for $70M a year....," another fan wrote.

"Vision therapy techniques … helps his eyes see things sharper," another user commented.

Casual fans and rival supporters treated the video as comedy gold, while a quieter minority recognized it as purposeful preparation. A few observers noted that quarterbacks rely heavily on quick visual processing, so warming up the eyes made practical sense even if it looked strange.

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