Some quarterbacks turn to chess for improved decision-making
Three of the more effective quarterbacks in football have one thing in common.
They have, at one time or another, used chess to enhance their decision-making.
As explained by Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times, Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurt, Texans quarterback C.J. Stround, and Cardinals quarterback Josh Dobbs have retained at some point in their careers the services of L.A.-based performance coach Seth Makowsky, who relies on chess to sharpen thinking under pressure.
Makowsky alters the variables to aid in the process. Clients at times have to make their moves in 10 seconds or less. Or they have to play chess with crowd noise. Or they have to play chess between running football plays on the practice field.
“In between reps, while they’re resting their body, I’m putting them in situations where they’ve got to assess threats and attacks,” Makowski told Farmer. “It’s not traditional chess. Often they’ll be sweating. The whole goal is to dramatically improve performance.”
“It’s about having a mental process with everything you do,” Dobbs told Farmer. “Especially being a quarterback, when you attack the line of scrimmage, you have to know what you’re doing each and every play. . . . We’ve been able to simulate a lot of those situations on the chessboard in terms of where your threats are, where you’re attacking, and how to make the best move given the amount of time that you have."
There's definitely a chess-match element to football. Unless, as one coach recently pointed out, one team is made up of pawns and the other is made up of queens and rooks. That's the point where the physical differences overcome anything anyone can mentally do to engineer a positive result.
