Last month I spent some time with Stephen Dubner on Freakonomics Radio, talking about why it's still so hard to find an NFL quarterback. Kurt Warner was on the episode too, and his film room story with Mike Martz is worth the listen on its own.
Toward the end, Stephen took the AIQ himself. Then he asked me the question I hear from head coaches more than any other. If a quarterback doesn't fit our system, what do we do with him?
The honest answer is that I'm not the one who decides. I give the head coach and the GM information, and they make the call. Sometimes they still love the arm and the mobility and want to find a way to make it work. That's when the conversation gets useful, because the next question is how to coach him.
For Stephen, one of the first things that came up was building him predefined panic answers. His profile showed someone who absorbs a big playbook quickly and is at his best managing a game, with less natural comfort in chaos. So you script it. Give him options to fall back on when a play goes sideways, and let him lean on what he does well.
That's the part of AIQ I care about most. A lot of the friction between a coach and a player comes from a disconnect in how each one sees the game. Once you know how a player takes in information and learns, you can install in a way that sticks and call plays he'll process cleanly on Sunday.
It's also why I think the most important pairing on any roster is the quarterback and the person calling his plays.
The full episode is linked below. If you're working through how to get more out of a quarterback on your roster, reply to this. It comes straight to me.
— Scott
Scott Goldman, Ph.D., is a clinical and performance psychologist and the creator of AIQ. He consults for the Golden State Warriors and has worked with NFL and NBA teams for over two decades.