cool sports blogx: A Better Way To Evaluate NFL QB Draft Prospects?

Andrew Luck - Robert Griffin III

Your favorite NFL team breaks the huddle for the first time in 2012 and your shiny, new first-round draft pick quarterback comes to the line. As he peers out over the defense, everyone, from the general manager to the fans, is confident they chose the right player in the NFL draft because of his dead-on answer to this question, ?A train travels 20 feet in one-fifth of a second. At this same speed, how many feet will it travel in 3 seconds??

Although he struggled with the next question, ?What is the ninth month of the year??, his overall Wonderlic cognitive ability test came back with an above average score, giving the assumption he has the smarts to play professional football.

It sounds absurd, but every year when top college football QBs get together for the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, we start hearing about and comparing their scores on the infamous Wonderlic test. While they are also asked to run fast, lift heavy objects, jump high and throw every conceivable type of pass, their most important skill, the ability to recognize patterns and make decisions, is measured in 12 minutes by 50 multiple choice questions.

Indeed, a 2009 study found that Wonderlic test scores were not at all related to success in the NFL for any position. So, how should we evaluate decision making ability? A Nobel prize winner in economics suggests that we start with the assumption that the quarterback?s brain is not a perfectly rational machine that always uses the best logic or information available.

Daniel Kahneman

Daniel Kahneman, an emeritus professor of psychology at Princeton, warns us that we are not as in control of our decisions as we?d like to believe. What may seem like a straightforward, obvious choice on the football field (audible or not, pass vs. run, throw short or deep) may be influenced by hidden biases and heuristics that we don?t consciously perceive.

You might be thinking that?s quite a load of psychobabble, but Kahneman, who created the field of behavioral economics, backs up the theory with plenty of real world experiments in his new book, Thinking, Fast and Slow. In one example from the sports world, he and his longtime collaborator, Amos Tversky, evaluated 2.5 million PGA golf putts and found that golfers perform much better on the green when going for par rather than a birdie. They blamed our inherent loss aversion (not scoring par) as a more powerful motivator than the opportunity for gain (scoring one under par). The putting motor skills of the golfer are the same, but the situation causes the internal motivation to change.

That sub-conscious adjustment to the skill of putting is an example of what Kahneman calls System 1 thinking, which is fast, intuitive, automatic and subject to our years of learned biases and experiences. The other half of our thinking process is known as System 2 described as our slower, logical, reasoned approach to everyday problems. Think of System 1 as the instant reactions the QB has on the field to the play in front of him, while System 2 is the hours of study and preparation of a game plan leading up to the game.

System One is essential to human functioning, as it lets the brain respond instantly and smoothly to a constant stream of inputs and choices. It is especially important in sports performance, where automaticity and rapid response is essential ? the brain doesn?t have time to go to System Two to analyze every potential action and decision. However, athletes and coaches can strengthen their ?athletic brains? by training themselves to recognize the limits of System One in real-time decision-making by recognizing their biases that may distort their thinking. While you will never eliminate the tendency of the brain to explain random events by coming up with perceived reasons that make it feel like there is pattern or causation, athletes can use System Two thinking to try and keep their biases in check.

In addition to the loss aversion heuristic, quarterbacks are also susceptible to what Kahneman calls the availability bias; our tendency to rely on associations and analogies that come easiest to mind. For a QB looking at the defensive formation, he might focus on the first response that pops into his head based on his stored memory and training, rather than seeing a more subtle pattern that may call for a different response.

For the experienced player, this automatic response is a competitive advantage because it has been earned by years of deliberate study and practice. System 1 becomes a tool to recognize patterns quickly in what Malcolm Gladwell would describe as a ?Blink.?

For the rookie, overconfidence in their System 1 assessment is what defensive coordinators hope for as they disguise their blitzes and coverages. QBs need large numbers of practice repetitions to slowly transform their System 2 analysis into System 1 reactions.

So, is there a multiple choice test for this? Not yet, but Axon is developing simulation tools that will begin to present these situation-based scenarios so that emerging players can identify their level of System 1 thinking. Interested general managers can then ask how well and how quickly their QB prospects recognize coverages and test their decisions under a variety of game situations. And the players can leave their calculators and #2 pencils at home.

Join Axon Sports on Twitter and Facebook