re: How are NFL players able to memorize plays and recall them during games?

Chad Johnson was cut from the Patriots because he could never learn the offense. Some offenses in the NFL are PhD level, even for receivers, and some are elementary school level.

LINK [pdf]

Rosetta Stone.

There are already some good answers in the thread. If you have "32 Scotland 5 Hook Right Mustang" as the play, only one part of that play applies to you and you know what to do.

Another advantage players have is that once you play football and practice, what looks like a lot of different pieces to an outsider is a single piece of information to you. They had some psych researchers do an experiment with a chess board. Participants were divided into two groups--regular people and chessmasters. Each person was shown a chessboard for one minute and then asked to recreate the game position. When the pieces were random, neither group did well. When the pieces were taken from an actual game position, the chessmasters did far better.

The reason is that regular people saw the game position as "white rook at A2, black knight at B5..." but chessmasters saw it as "Karpov defense vs. knight gambit (made that up, but the point stands.)

quote:

---

But how are they able to adapt so quickly to another team when they are traded mid-season for example when the playbooks and the nomenclature are obviously different? I've seem guys play one week for another team and then for a different team the following week and they seem to do fine.

---

They study the playbook a lot? And most of the plays are very similar, just different vocabulary. And if they don't know, they ask the player next to them...not that hard to figure out

I was 7 when I memorized the multiplication tables up to 12x12. It's not that hard. they do the same thing all year, sometimes for several years in a row. And Also a lot of their thinking is done post snap. Also players do screw up from time to time.It's not always obvious.

who doesn't know what Spider 2 Y Banana is and what to do on your route?

All kidding aside, some offenses are cakewalks.
One of my old high school playbooks went something like this:
3 digit series: the 1st number told us what kind of play it was going to be. Odd was a certain run, even was a certain pass and how you lined up and what route you'd run.

2nd number told us what gap the run play was going to go through. 1 = A gap, 2 = B gap, 3 = C gap, etc.
If it was a passing play, the number would coincide with whatever set

3rd number told us what kind of blocking it'd be. I think 1 was bootleg to the left or RB hits the left side.

So something like 121 Red was a running play (odd = run), 2 = B gap, 1 = left side; Red = FB hits the MLB that came through the hole.

Simple right? Imagine every playbook being different with some being harder. Once you get the lingo and what numbers mean what, learning the routes/blocking schemes are a lot easier.

Its the hardest on the QB because he has to understand every lingo coincides with where a potential receiver will be. Each position has it easier. I know during a 242 route, if I'm a WR lined up wide on the right, I'm just on a go-route and I'm his first option.

My QB has to know that route, and 3 other receiver's. A lot harder.

That's why ultimately low IQ QBs that don't practice or put much time and effort have a hard time grasping the playbook and ultimately these off-sync passes that get picked off more often than not. Smarter QBs minimize those mistakes because they know where their receivers will be, or in theory should be.

quote:

---

If history is anything to go by, NFL players don't seem to be a very bright bunch for the most part - OJ, Aaron Hernandez, Adrian Peterson etc....

---

If history is anything to go by, if history teaches us anything, it's that OJ and Aaron Hernandez can kill anybody

Ocho cinco never understood the Pats playbook.