You're back.

This is the most unexpected diary I will probably ever (figuratively) pen.  It's also a bit personal, but bear with me:  the title is not a lie; there will be football talk.  I think the result may surprise you.

But I'm you.

Yes, and you're me.  And we. . . might be Cade McNamara.

Now you're just being silly.

No, just metaphorical.  Read on and learn a thing about yourself, cheap imitation of Brian/Seth's alter ego.

The catalyst for this was a mental breakdown at work that forced me to leave a job after just a few months.  The weird thing was, the breakdown occurred shortly after I'd aced two certification exams.  After some consultation, I subjected myself to a professionally administered a battery of IQ tests to figure out what the crap happened.  (By the way, if you ever go through this yourself, be sure to take the whole day off:  The experience will fry your brain.)

Apparently IQ tests are very different from how they're portrayed in pop culture (go figure), because it involved a lot of terms and numbers I didn't understand.  First thing to know, the individual (sub)tests have a maximum score of 18, giving them more in common with Dungeons & Dragons than Mensa.  Anyway, here's how I did:

Perceptual Reasoning (3 tests):  17,17,18
Processing Speed (2 tests):  8,16
Simple Focused Attention:  10
Flexible Attention:  13

OK, what does it mean?  Well, I went over that with the neuropsychologist in detail.

Perceptual Reasoning is the ability to process visual information.  The term "genius" does not exist in professional neuropsychology but a set of 17/17/18 translates to 99.7th percentile.  That's pretty darn good.

There are apparently two different types of tests for Processing Speed ("Symbol Search" and "Coding").  If perceptual reasoning is how well one can process visual information, symbol search measures how quickly one processes information.  Coding measures mental flexibility.  My brain has the maneuverability and speed of a Mars rover; I can 360 in place at an asphalt-melting 0.1m/s.

Simple Focused Attention is the ability to focus on something over short timescales -- generally a few seconds.  In other words, it roughly applies to multi-tasking and the ability to manage distractions.  This score can get dragged upwards by the nature of the test administered.  Basically, if you're good at the test material, like I was, it can hide the fact that you're struggling with the test format.  Long story short, I am very bad at this.

 

Taken altogether, this implies I'm flat-out elite at processing visual information if given enough time.  I'm better than almost anyone you'll ever meet at finding patterns (and non-patterns!) in my field of vision.  This would be useful for things like, oh, pre-snap reads.  With practice, I will find the soft spot in your coverage, and I won't fall for any of your college crappe because I am better than y--

Oh by the way --

Oh, no

One more thing --

Wait, stop --

Can you also --

Zounds, my only weakness!

You see, when I'm asked to process inputs quickly, my intelligence starts to suffer.  As things get increasingly hectic, those "genius" smarts can evaporate, all the way to below-average intelligence.  This was the root cause of my breakdown:  It's not that I'm inherently stupid, per se; it's that the faster you pressure me to go, the stupider I get, well beyond any level of "thinking fast is hard".  The breakdown occurred during a high-intensity multi-tasking drill.  Peppered with enough distractions, my IQ will actually collapse.  In other words, I'm the worst person you want to make a zone read.

Sound like someone you know?

Let me be clear about some things.  No, I'm not Cade McNamara.

*gasp*

Oh, shut up.  My test results (including diagnosis and disability) are my own.  I've never met the guy, let alone had his brain pecked at by a neuropsychologist.  I honestly don't know what he is and isn't capable of.  We've spent a lot of time and words trying to figure out Michigan's QB run game, but ultimately, this is all purely speculative.

That's a fancy way of saying "waste of time".

Is it?  Because while we didn't learn who Cade McNamara is today (though I'm guessing he's the starting QB at Michigan), I got some pretty valuable takeaways from this experience:

1. The human brain has more than one gear.  Beyond simply "fast is harder than slow", there are people who excel at solving complex problems, and there are those talented at solving simpler problems faster.  This is directly translatable to things like football.
2. Some mental tasks are literally impossible for some people.  Lemme be clear:  The takeaway is NOT, "Cade can't make a post-snap read."  Rather, there are actual performance differences in people's brains that make certain tasks unachievable, not a matter of exercise or repetition or want-to or even smarts.  For example, if you threw me back in time and raised me from infancy under the very best coaching to play quarterback, I still probably can't make a post-snap read.  My brain cannot do it.  And here's the kicker:
3. These differences can be measured.

That last point is key.  I compared myself to Cade because I thought the similarities were amusing, so please don't take that seriously.  Rather, if there's one thing I want everyone to take from this, it's that "some people are better at some things than others" is an incomplete perspective.  There are some people who can't do certain things, no matter how hard they try, but that doesn't mean they can't be good or even elite at others.  And, you can find out what those are!

I'm saying a program with Michigan's resources can run any QB through a battery of tests and, much like the Combine can assess speed and strength and quickness, determine what sorts of assignments and schemes best suit the player.  Actually, it's not limited to QBs; this applies to anyone.

Now, I don't believe these tests are infallible.  But they've improved dramatically over the years, and besides, the Combine is hardly perfect, either, so why do they still use it?  Because it allows scouts to assess players objectively.  Drafting purely on Combine numbers is lunacy, but there's real value in raw, unbiased data.  It gives coaches a starting point from which to gauge the subjective information.

Well, it turns out the same can be done for mental abilities, at least to an extent.  You won't get a complete picture, but you can gauge a QB's noggin in ways that aren't camouflaged by competition level or simplicity of scheme.  You shouldn't judge a QB or any player based on an IQ test, but lacking information about a player's mental abilities, you can make a player look stupid by coaching stuff they're bad at.  And, thing is, we already know this!  We know Denard couldn't run the zone read effectively; we know Gemon Green was much better at man coverage than zone; we know Joe Bolden could get paralyzed by any play he hadn't downloaded in advance.  We already know schemes can make or break players on a mental level, but it seems we still determine these differences through trial & error, when comparable information might possibly be learned in just a few hours.  There may be no need to waste offseasons, let alone games and even entire careers, trying to turn players into sorts they're not.