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Becoming a Better Quarterback

Football requires size, speed, and strength. Savvy and smarts often differentiate the good players from the great ones. Intelligence and efficient decision making has become a major demand for individuals who play quarterback on high school, college, and professional football teams. As football defenses become more complex and unpredictable, quarterbacks need to learn to make very quick decisions, basing them upon their film study and experiences from the past, as well as what they observe in the current situation.

An article in the Wall Street Journal by John Weinbach describes a number of digital technologies that are being used to enhance skills in college quarterbacks.  For example, the Maryland football team reportedly invested more than $50,000 in a video game system to help quarterbacks master the team’s playbook. The University of Arizona has a studio where players compete against “life-size, computer-generated opponents.” 

As offenses become more complex, quarterbacks will need to recall dozens of plays with a myriad of nuances. This task requires strengths in long-term memory, much of which can come from film study. But  it also requires working memory that helps the quarterback simultaneously access long-term memory, observe and remember the current defensive formation, and make a decision while keeping those other things in mind. It would seem that quarterbacks who have significant working-memory strengths may have an advantage in this type of situation. 

Cogmed, Inc., which provides working-memory training for children and adults, had discussed conducting research in this area. The hypothesis is that working-memory training will help a quarterback process the multiple pieces of information that he needs to access while in the act of coordinating a play. In a football culture where the best quarterbacks, such as Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, are known not only for their physical skills but also for their cerebral attributes, it is unsurprising that tools that aid in decision making would be helpful to these athletes. A question to be posed is, if working-memory training is helpful to individuals playing the quarterback position, might it also serve other athletes, such as football offensive linemen or point guards on a basketball team, where cognition and awareness of past and current situations play a significant role beyond simple athletic ability and reaction time. Neurotechnologies such as Cogmed Working Memory training hold the promise that we can use digital technologies to serve children in the classroom, playing fields, and social areas in their lives. A willingness to be creative is all we need.