Originally posted by tankle104:
Originally posted by Phoenix49ers:
Originally posted by JTsBiggestFan:
Sorry if this is a repost, but check this out (pay wall but worth it!):
https://theathletic.com/4226466/2023/02/24/nfl-quarterbacks-s2-cognition-test/
Purdy aced the S2 cognition test, which supposedly only the elite QB can ace!
I copy and pasted the good parts, so this isn't the entire text, but most of the good stuff......
The test he absolutely aced — and one that predicted his brilliant rookie season for the 49ers — was administered out of public view. Purdy landed in the mid 90s on something called the S2 Cognition test, a score you might consider Drew Brees-like.
Which is to say, it's elite.
The S2 isn't an intelligence test like the 50-question Wonderlic exam but rather measures how quickly and accurately athletes process information. It's like the 40-yard dash for the brain.
"The game will never be too fast for Brock, I'll say that," said Brandon Ally, a neuroscientist and cofounder of Nashville-based S2 Cognition. "I don't think he'll ever have trouble adjusting."
He couldn't give out Purdy's exact score because it's privileged information but said it was in the "mid 90s." That's about where Brees, the former Saints quarterback famous for lightning-fast decision-making, scored and where two of the top passers in the league now, the Chiefs' Patrick Mahomes and the Bills' Josh Allen, also landed. The Bengals' Joe Burrow took the test while at LSU and agreed to allow S2 to disclose the information.
Of course he did — he scored in the 97th percentile.
"We consider anything above the 80th percentile to be elite," Ally said.
For decades the NFL used the Wonderlic to measure intelligence. The questions start out easy — What's the eighth month of the year?, for example — and get progressively more difficult. Most people can't finish the 12-minute exam. While a high Wonderlic score suggests a quarterback knows how to study and will remember the playbook, it doesn't necessarily mean he'll hold up well against a zero blitz.
Brees is a good example. He got a 28 on the Wonderlic, which is very good, but not superior. His S2 score, meanwhile, was exceptional. Ally said the cognition test not only can forecast whether a quarterback will be successful in the NFL, it comes close to predicting the quarterback's career passer rating.
The company recently looked at 27 starting quarterbacks. (Some of the older veterans like Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers had entered the league before S2 began testing in 2015 and there are no scores for them; Brees took the test while already playing in the NFL.) Of that group, 13 had a career passer rating above 90. The average S2 score of those players was the 91st percentile. Those with passer ratings below 90 had much lower test results.
"Those 14 guys, the average score was in the low 60s," Ally said.
Top-tier quarterbacks have the highest average scores, followed closely by safeties. That makes sense considering safeties are known as the "quarterback of the defense" and must keep an eye on multiple moving opponents.
"The average human being can keep track of about three and a half objects at a time," Alley said. "The average safety in the NFL, it's closer to six."
The positions with the third-highest scores: linebacker and cornerback.
The highest S2 score in last year's draft class, in fact, was turned in by a cornerback, Trent McDuffie, who started 15 games for the Chiefs, including the Super Bowl.
Purdy's score wasn't too far behind. According to Ally, the 49ers quarterback did particularly well in three areas. One of them was spatial awareness, which translates in several aspects of the game, including how well a quarterback can assess a defense before the snap.
Another area in which Purdy excelled was distraction control.
"Those are the guys — and Drew Brees was one of those — who, the pocket, the world could be collapsing around them and they can just maintain that steely focus on what they're supposed to be doing," Ally said.
Finally, Purdy was especially impressive when it came to depth perception speed.
"He was in some pretty elite company," Ally said. "I mean, he was in the high 90s on that."
As for the 49ers' other young quarterback, Trey Lance?
Ally couldn't reveal the exact number but said Lance "scored well."
"He's not in the Brock Purdy range but he didn't score poorly," he said.
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Justin Fields also supposedly aced it. CJ Stroud apparently bombed it but is killing it this far as a rookie. Test is way overhyped.
I think it's a very valuable set of data but I don't believe any one test is end all be all. So I don't consider it overhyped but I think it's very telling of a players potential in aspects of playing the position, there are still many other variables that help decide a QBs potential.
It's an interesting test for sure. You have to take it in front of a computer screen and do certain things with your peripheral vision (for example). If I was a scout or coach, it's another test that helps me evaluate a QB, but like any test -- you have to look also at the QB's character, determination, habits, beliefs, and the tape. Make the best guess you can and fire away the draft pick. The draft is still a big lottery, in my opinion, no matter how educated the guess is.
CJ Stroud looks legit (at least from the 2023 highlight reels). Demeco - I think - got lucky like Kyle did in picking Stroud. Saleh got unlucky with Zach. McDaniel already had Tua. Lafleaur has Love, so far meh. McVay has an aging super star in Stafford. It would be interesting in the future if Kyle faces off with Demeco in the super bowl. That would be a Shanahan Super Bowl, in a sense.
