After questioning the role of cognition tests in an HT last month, I spoke with the founder of a company offering such tess. And he explains why he believes they help.

*Editor’s note: The following is based on an interview with Scott Goldman, co-founder of AIQ, a company specializing in cognitive assessments of athletes. AIQ reached out after my article last month questioning just how much cognition tests could help Sean Payton and the Broncos figure out which college QB would be the best fit in Denver.

Twenty-six years ago at this time of year, a major debate was happening in NFL front offices, among fans, in the media.

Peyton Manning or Ryan Leaf - who should go No. 1 overall?

Broncos Country was only tangentially aware; we were too busy celebrating John Elway’s triumph in Super Bowl XXXII, blissfully ignorant that other teams were desperate to find a franchise QB.

As a PhD student at Alabama, I was mainly just happy Manning would be leaving Tennessee so the Crimson Tide could have a chance on the Third Saturday in October.

But another PhD student in New York was highly intrigued with the debate.

The clinical psychology/school psychology student at Hofstra was curious why so many important decisions were being made with seemingly such rudimentary tools.

“There was Ryan Leaf, who had a cannon for an arm, and Peyton Manning, who was a known winner and had come from NFL pedigree,” said Dr. Scott Goldman, recalling the comparisons at the time. “And as this debate is going on about which one is the better quarterback - and we have all these measurements like hand size to tell us - the real question is can they play at the next level?”

As we’ve seen time and again after the NFL Draft, ranking in the draft selection doesn’t always correlate to performance in the NFL.

In the 1998 Draft, the only way to speculate about performance (beyond guessing how a player’s college tape would translate to the pro game) was the Wonderlic Test, a cognitive assessment based on theory from the 1930s that comprised 50 multiple-choice questions to be answered in 12 minutes.

Fun Fact - Manning scored a 28 and Leaf a 27 (20 is considered “average intelligence” and 24 was considered average among QBs). Both were relatively low compared to other Super Bowl-winning QBs like Eli Manning (39), Aaron Rodgers (35) and Tom Brady (33) [but Drew Brees and Russell Wilson both scored 28 while Ben Roethlisberger was 27).

Goldman and a fellow PhD student, Jim Bowman, believed there could be a much better test for helping teams evaluate the important cognitive abilities of their athletes.

“We thought we could build a better mouse trap,” Goldman said.

So over the next 15 years, the two psychologist sports fans set about building a better trap.

Drawing from the Catell-Horn-Carroll theory of cognitive abilities - the “gold standard” for measuring intelligence - Goldman and Bowman applied decades of psychological research on learning to the sports world to form Athlete Intelligence Quotient.

And in 2012 the first NFL team put their AIQ assessment to work.

“We were basically mashing the nerd world with the jock world,” Goldman said. “Because we think it is helpful to both.”

The result is a test that Goldman describes as “a gauntlet of cognitive tasks” in a game-like format that reveals information on 15 data points.

And this isn’t just feedback for sport-specific data but feedback that also provides information related to an athlete’s specific position, such as a linebacker, defensive back, or of course, quarterback.

Three data points that come out of the AIQ test are an example - 1) Multi-target search; 2) Navigation and 3) Spatial awareness.

By name only, you can guess how all could be useful in evaluating a quarterback.

The multi-target search can help indicate whether a quarterback is good at pre-snap reads, navigation reveals his ability to see passing lanes and throwing windows, and spatial awareness can tell if the QB is able to look downfield while also being cognizant of a collapsing pocket.

Goldman also believes AIQ helps identify strengths and weaknesses that certain stats can hide or unnecessarily amplify.

The psychologist recalled a time their test revealed a very highly ranked college wide receiver might struggle at the next level.

“He was physically very gifted, but he only ran three routes on film,” Goldman recalled, adding that the position coach argued the receiver would be able to run “epic” routes once he got to a pro team with a bigger route tree.

But Goldman’s report to the coach based on the player’s multiple target search score was that he might only run three routes because he’s not able to process more than that.

It turned out that was the case in the NFL.

“The coach came to me the next year to thank me and said he believed they dodged a bullet,” Goldman said.

“What fans and front offices really want is production [from the athletes],” Goldman explained. “And what we think we get is production when we get players.”

But the reality, he added, is far more nuanced.

“Production comes from players times their environment,” he said, noting that the environment is highly variable.

Maybe it’s the nutrition or a particular strength program or certain coaches or a particular scheme.

“We make an assumption that when [a team] grabs a player, we’re automatically getting their production,” Goldman said. “But it’s a much more complicated procedure.”

The goal of the AIQ test model is to take out as much guesswork and identify those factors that help a player produce - so teams can provide the right kind of environment or recognize they don’t have what will be best for a certain kind of player.

“Teams don’t want to throw darts at a board,” he said. “They want to do their homework.”

Sometimes that homework isn’t difficult. Peyton Manning was always going to be good, but did everyone know in 1998 he’d be Hall of Fame good? Maybe.

Did everyone know Ryan Leaf would be a huge bust? Maybe not. Perhaps a better evaluation could have helped both Leaf and the Chargers know in what environment his talent could best thrive.

That’s all Goldman and Bowman are trying to do.

“It’s possible Ryan Leaf could have had a Hall of Fame career too if he was put in a different situation,” Goldman said, using a metaphor of walking through a living room in the dark. “If you don’t turn on the light, you may trip over the couch or you never find a place to sit. Either way, the couch is still there. We are just flipping on the switch so you can see it.”

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