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Note: If Kyle McCord isn’t drafted in the first or second round, first QB picked, there is definitely something wrong with the NFL system, coaching subjectivity, their eyesight, mental acuity or the just fu@%$#* stupid, he’s the best out there.
By Nick Baumgardner /The Athletic
March 18, 2025 6:00 am EDT
The AIQ test has been on the market for more than a decade now, and it’s used by teams in the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB and MLS to evaluate the athletic intelligence not only of draft prospects but of players on their current rosters.
Did you know? AIQ was originally named AIM. Our mission: help teams make smarter decisions, find hidden talent, & develop athletes to their fullest.
At present, 10 NFL teams use AIQ as a measurement. The 35-minute test, administered on an iPad, is based on the famed Cattell-Horn-Carroll theory of cognitive abilities — widely known as the best and most comprehensive of its kind. AIQ is designed to determine a player’s complete intelligence profile, as well as their ability to physically and mentally solve the “constantly mutating puzzle” of an NFL football game.
“We studied so many things — firefighters, police officers and first responders, military personnel, astronauts,” Goldman says. “If you think about a quarterback, who has to examine a coverage scheme, move people around and make decisions with defenders coming at him, that’s pretty similar to a firefighter who’s had to kick a door down and immediately identify threats and dangers.”
The test measures everything an evaluator needs to know, including learning efficiency, spatial awareness, reaction time and something defined as “manipulation/rotation” — a quarterback’s ability to read a defense from the pocket. For years, some of the top QB coaches in football have had to gauge those aspects mostly from feel.
AIQ attempts to provide a much firmer answer.
And McCord’s performance on the test was elite, nearly across the board. He scored in the highest bucket (“superior”) in five different categories and was awfully close to that level in both spatial awareness and learning efficiency (how long it takes a player to retain information).
The data Wilson gathered from McCord’s QBX session further proved Palmer’s instinct about him: His arm is elite, but so is his brain.
On the former, McCord was, by a wide margin, the best thrower in nearly every area during the Shrine Bowl session. He posted a spiral efficiency of 93 percent, with 12 of his 28 throws rating at a perfect 100. He clocked an average spin rate of 699 rpm, well above the NFL average of 592. Sixteen of McCord’s throws had a spin rate higher than 700, topping out at 740 (per Wilson’s Blake Rus, a spin rate of 800 qualifies as “elite” in the NFL.)
“The data showed that Kyle, for a lot of the starters I’ve worked with — I can’t name names here — but when he’s in that 95th percentile on some of these, it’s not just against the other guys at Shrine,” Palmer says. “It’s everybody.”
The ability to show NFL teams these numbers obviously has helped McCord throughout the draft process, as there’s really no need for scouts to cite “gut feelings” about his throwing ability.
“It was funny, when we were in Dallas waiting for the numbers — Jordan didn’t have them when he went to present to the teams,” McCord says. “And right as he got to mine, he sorta stopped and smiled at me.
“That work paid off.”
By Nick Baumgardner /The Athletic
March 18, 2025 6:00 am EDT
The AIQ test has been on the market for more than a decade now, and it’s used by teams in the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB and MLS to evaluate the athletic intelligence not only of draft prospects but of players on their current rosters.
Did you know? AIQ was originally named AIM. Our mission: help teams make smarter decisions, find hidden talent, & develop athletes to their fullest.
At present, 10 NFL teams use AIQ as a measurement. The 35-minute test, administered on an iPad, is based on the famed Cattell-Horn-Carroll theory of cognitive abilities — widely known as the best and most comprehensive of its kind. AIQ is designed to determine a player’s complete intelligence profile, as well as their ability to physically and mentally solve the “constantly mutating puzzle” of an NFL football game.
“We studied so many things — firefighters, police officers and first responders, military personnel, astronauts,” Goldman says. “If you think about a quarterback, who has to examine a coverage scheme, move people around and make decisions with defenders coming at him, that’s pretty similar to a firefighter who’s had to kick a door down and immediately identify threats and dangers.”
The test measures everything an evaluator needs to know, including learning efficiency, spatial awareness, reaction time and something defined as “manipulation/rotation” — a quarterback’s ability to read a defense from the pocket. For years, some of the top QB coaches in football have had to gauge those aspects mostly from feel.
AIQ attempts to provide a much firmer answer.
And McCord’s performance on the test was elite, nearly across the board. He scored in the highest bucket (“superior”) in five different categories and was awfully close to that level in both spatial awareness and learning efficiency (how long it takes a player to retain information).
The data Wilson gathered from McCord’s QBX session further proved Palmer’s instinct about him: His arm is elite, but so is his brain.
On the former, McCord was, by a wide margin, the best thrower in nearly every area during the Shrine Bowl session. He posted a spiral efficiency of 93 percent, with 12 of his 28 throws rating at a perfect 100. He clocked an average spin rate of 699 rpm, well above the NFL average of 592. Sixteen of McCord’s throws had a spin rate higher than 700, topping out at 740 (per Wilson’s Blake Rus, a spin rate of 800 qualifies as “elite” in the NFL.)
“The data showed that Kyle, for a lot of the starters I’ve worked with — I can’t name names here — but when he’s in that 95th percentile on some of these, it’s not just against the other guys at Shrine,” Palmer says. “It’s everybody.”
The ability to show NFL teams these numbers obviously has helped McCord throughout the draft process, as there’s really no need for scouts to cite “gut feelings” about his throwing ability.
“It was funny, when we were in Dallas waiting for the numbers — Jordan didn’t have them when he went to present to the teams,” McCord says. “And right as he got to mine, he sorta stopped and smiled at me.
“That work paid off.”
