Jaws & Young make a great point (1 Viewer)

[IM666]

What he had to say in 2005 regarding Alex Smith:

PICKING THEIR BRAINSONE MAN CLAIMS TO FORECAST SUCCESS FROM PROFILESJONATHAN NIEDNAGEL ISN'T A DOCTOR, BUT SEVERAL SPORTS EXECUTIVES HAVERELIED ON HIS BRAIN-TYPING METHODS AS A BAROMETER WHEN DRAFTINGPLAYERS FOR THEIR TEAMS.By JON WILNER, San Jose Mercury NewsIn their pre -draft evaluations of quarterbacks Alex Smith and Aaron Rodgers, the 49ers' brass havesought advice from a wide range of coaches, scouts, trainers and doctors.But the 49ers have not consulted with the man who decoded the Peyton Manning -Ryan Leaf DraftDebate of 1998, the man who claims to have unique insight into the way athletes move and think, theman known as ''The Brain Doctor.''His diagnosis?''The 49ers are nuts for not contacting me,'' Jonathan Niednagel said last week. ''Each of those guyshas an inborn brain type, and that will dramatically affect the way they play.''Niednagel is not a doctor; he was a finance major in college. But he has spent two decades studyinghow brain circuitry affects performance and gets paid six figures by professional sports teams foradvice on potential draft picks and free -agent signees.He believes, for instance, that there's an ideal brain type for quarterbacks: ESTP, an acronym forextroverted, se nsing, thinking, perceiving. Joe Montana is an ESTP. So are John Elway, Brett Favre,Dan Marino and Manning. They live for the moment and aren't fazed by their own mistakes. Whenthe stakes are highest, they think as logically as Mr. Spock.''Under pressure, you localize to the area of the brain where you are strongest,'' said Niednagel(pronounced NEED -noggle). ''Guys like Montana and Favre, they are thinkers.''So what about the hard-wiring of the quarterbacks at the top of the 49ers' draft board?Based on a preliminary analysis, Niednagel said, neither Smith nor Rodgers is an ESTP. That doesn'tnecessarily mean they're destined for failure. Tom Brady isn't an ESTP, either. But he's perfectlysuited for the team New England Patriots Coach Bill Belichick has built around him.''If you put Brady with another squad, there's no way he would have developed the way he has,''Niednagel said. ''He's not a guy who, if you let him do the Brett Favre -freelance thing, he's going tobe effective. But he's with a coach who is very structured and knows how to use him.''

Seems to be a copout to me; if Alex Smith was good, he could say it was the system, if not then he can say I told you I was right. Perhaps, Turner did have the right system for Smith to do well last year. Or maybe the guy is just a quack, a rich quack, but a quack nonetheless.

 

[CalBear]

Niednagel isn't even qualified enough to be called a quack. He has no scientific or medical background, and his biggest accomplishment was predicting that Peyton Manning would be a star in the NFL. Woo. All he does is make educated guesses, after looking at players in slightly more detail than a casual fan would.

 

[siffoin]

Niednagel isn't even qualified enough to be called a quack. He has no scientific or medical background, and his biggest accomplishment was predicting that Peyton Manning would be a star in the NFL. Woo. All he does is make educated guesses, after looking at players in slightly more detail than a casual fan would.

Niednagle's work is based upon the Myers-Briggs personality profiles, which is a modern standardized "assessment" test used to identify different personality types based in principle on Carl Jung's work in the 1920's. I think there are a whole lot of people who have gained quite a bit of knowledge from the understanding of their personality type. Though not the first to apply personality assessment to athletes, Neidnagel did gain a lot of publicity from his book on Brain Typing in Athletes. It has been years since I read the book, but I believe he said Tiger would change the game of golf...this is when Tiger was in his early teens. Granted Tiger was a phenom, but still nice call. He's made many others. Niednagels "gift" is in his ability to apply the personality archetypes by watching the physical performance of the athlete. With that said, I think there are other forms of "psychological" assessment that are superior to the Myers-Briggs.For a number of years, I was a practicing applied sport psychologist in private practice as well as a consultant for a Division 1 school. Assessing athletes on their competitive personality (using a much more athletically focused form of assessment) provided incredibly valuable information about the athlete. Often times the assessment facilitated a break-through, and opened a new door for the athlete to understand some of their unique personality traits that often kept them from consistently performing at the high end of their ability. Over theyears I performed literally hundreds of competitive personality assessments on athletes ranging in level from professionals to olympic to jr. high kids. And from that experience strongly believe that the insight gained would be valuable to any team in the evaluation and selection process of a prospective player.

 

[Chase Stuart]

Niednagel isn't even qualified enough to be called a quack. He has no scientific or medical background, and his biggest accomplishment was predicting that Peyton Manning would be a star in the NFL. Woo. All he does is make educated guesses, after looking at players in slightly more detail than a casual fan would.

The whole MBTI is , IMO. None of the four factors are binary, yet they are treated as such. People fall on a continuum of being extroverted or introverted, for example, and that changes throughout people's lives, too. The same people get different results all the time when taking the text, even when they take them the next day.A rule of Pac-10 bad, SEC good, will still tell you to draft Peyton Manning and Eli Manning and avoid Alex Smith and Ryan Leaf. That doesn't make it a good rule to follow when drafting a QB.

 

[EdwardCat]

Sporting News, The, April 28, 2003 (1) HEAD GAMESSome NFL prospects are wired better than othersIf an NFL team plans to draft Texas quarterback Chris Simms, it should not expect to get his father, Phil, the Super Bowl MVP and longtime quarterback of the Giants. Sure, Chris looks like his dad. Chris even sounds like his dad, but according to Jonathan Niednagel, the subtle difference is up top and inside, where the brain connects and delivers messages to the rest of the body."I like Chris, but they're not of the same wiring," says Niednagel, who has given counsel on draft and free-agent prospects to NFL teams and a few pro teams outside football, including the Reds and Nuggets. It's well-documented how the man called the "brain doctor" advised the Chargers against selecting Ryan Leaf based merely upon what he'd observed of Leaf's brain wiring.Niednagel, head of the Brain Types Institute in Nottinghill, Mo., operates with an eight-letter alphabet. When he looks at a person, he sees four letters--or one of 16 combinations called brain types, which are determined by four basic pairs of psychological attributes (see inset).Brain-type categories(E)xtroverted vs. (I)ntroverted: Draws energy from others or from within.(S)ensing vs. i(N)tuitive: Believes in only touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing or also in a sixth, guiding sense.(T)hinking vs. (F)eeling: Bases decisions on either logic or emotion.(J)udging vs. (P)erceiving: Is work-oriented or Is work-oriented or fun-oriented in approach to life.AdvertisementAnd that's all Niednagel needs to do--observe for a few minutes--before offering critical information about the way an individual's brain is wired and what it could mean. "Each of these types has very specific motor skill areas," he says, "where for each type the cerebral cortex and the motor cortex are interconnected. If you watch the motor skills, you can know how their mind works."Phil Simms is an ESTP, which Niednagel says is the best brain type for an NTL quarterback. Other ESTPs: Johnny Unitas, Joe Namath, Ken Stabler, Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montana, John Elway, Brett Favre, Peyton Manning and Jim Kelly. Chris Simms is an ENFP, and according to Niednagel, "Few ENFPs have been successful quarterbacks in recent NFL history."Niednagel offers a look inside the heads of three other draft prospects:Boss Bailey, LB, GeorgiaBrain type: ISFPOther ISFPs: Brian Urlacher, Carnell Lake, Ed "Too Tall" Jones, Steve Atwater."ESFPs and ISFPs are big-muscle dominant and right-brained; they have the ability to be the best defenders of all because when you give them a juke or try to fake them, they don't just follow your head the way the rest of us would take a juke and be faked out. These guys are able to just slide their bodies superbly. And he'll be a good tackler because when he hits guys, he'll be using his whole body. It won't be just arm tackling; he'll be able to punish guys."Andre Johnson, WR, MiamiBrain type: ESFPESFPs: Keyshawn Johnson, Randy Moss, Terrell Owens."ESTPs and ESFPs love the big game. Andre is designed to be a big-game player. That definitely perks him up. The thing is, ESFPs can sometimes get a little bit too uptight and tense. They're totally in touch with what's going on. They can tell you the temperature. They can tell you how hard the ground is. These guys, if it gets into the nasty kinds of weather, typically are going to be affected by it much more."Eric Steinbach, G, IowaBrain type: ENTPOther ENTPs: Dermontti Dawson, Tim Grunhard, Frank Winters, Will Shields."Almost all your best centers and guards are ENTPs, but you get the best tackles in SFPs (ESFP and ISFP) because of the big-muscle dominance. They were talking about moving him to tackle; not that he can't play it, but he won't have quite the body balance. He would excel more at the interior line, like center or offensive guard. ENTPs have really quick feet, so you'll often hear that they have really good footwork. He'll tend to be a little bit more on the finesse side."--Mike Kilduff

I've never heard of anyone using the Myers-Briggs as a method of evaluating QBs. This would be fascinating if someone researched it in depth. (INTJ here.) It does not surprise me that the most successful football players are sensates (S's).

 

[Chase Stuart]

Sporting News, The, April 28, 2003 (1) HEAD GAMESSome NFL prospects are wired better than othersIf an NFL team plans to draft Texas quarterback Chris Simms, it should not expect to get his father, Phil, the Super Bowl MVP and longtime quarterback of the Giants. Sure, Chris looks like his dad. Chris even sounds like his dad, but according to Jonathan Niednagel, the subtle difference is up top and inside, where the brain connects and delivers messages to the rest of the body."I like Chris, but they're not of the same wiring," says Niednagel, who has given counsel on draft and free-agent prospects to NFL teams and a few pro teams outside football, including the Reds and Nuggets. It's well-documented how the man called the "brain doctor" advised the Chargers against selecting Ryan Leaf based merely upon what he'd observed of Leaf's brain wiring.Niednagel, head of the Brain Types Institute in Nottinghill, Mo., operates with an eight-letter alphabet. When he looks at a person, he sees four letters--or one of 16 combinations called brain types, which are determined by four basic pairs of psychological attributes (see inset).Brain-type categories(E)xtroverted vs. (I)ntroverted: Draws energy from others or from within.(S)ensing vs. i(N)tuitive: Believes in only touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing or also in a sixth, guiding sense.(T)hinking vs. (F)eeling: Bases decisions on either logic or emotion.(J)udging vs. (P)erceiving: Is work-oriented or Is work-oriented or fun-oriented in approach to life.AdvertisementAnd that's all Niednagel needs to do--observe for a few minutes--before offering critical information about the way an individual's brain is wired and what it could mean. "Each of these types has very specific motor skill areas," he says, "where for each type the cerebral cortex and the motor cortex are interconnected. If you watch the motor skills, you can know how their mind works."Phil Simms is an ESTP, which Niednagel says is the best brain type for an NTL quarterback. Other ESTPs: Johnny Unitas, Joe Namath, Ken Stabler, Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montana, John Elway, Brett Favre, Peyton Manning and Jim Kelly. Chris Simms is an ENFP, and according to Niednagel, "Few ENFPs have been successful quarterbacks in recent NFL history."Niednagel offers a look inside the heads of three other draft prospects:Boss Bailey, LB, GeorgiaBrain type: ISFPOther ISFPs: Brian Urlacher, Carnell Lake, Ed "Too Tall" Jones, Steve Atwater."ESFPs and ISFPs are big-muscle dominant and right-brained; they have the ability to be the best defenders of all because when you give them a juke or try to fake them, they don't just follow your head the way the rest of us would take a juke and be faked out. These guys are able to just slide their bodies superbly. And he'll be a good tackler because when he hits guys, he'll be using his whole body. It won't be just arm tackling; he'll be able to punish guys."Andre Johnson, WR, MiamiBrain type: ESFPESFPs: Keyshawn Johnson, Randy Moss, Terrell Owens."ESTPs and ESFPs love the big game. Andre is designed to be a big-game player. That definitely perks him up. The thing is, ESFPs can sometimes get a little bit too uptight and tense. They're totally in touch with what's going on. They can tell you the temperature. They can tell you how hard the ground is. These guys, if it gets into the nasty kinds of weather, typically are going to be affected by it much more."Eric Steinbach, G, IowaBrain type: ENTPOther ENTPs: Dermontti Dawson, Tim Grunhard, Frank Winters, Will Shields."Almost all your best centers and guards are ENTPs, but you get the best tackles in SFPs (ESFP and ISFP) because of the big-muscle dominance. They were talking about moving him to tackle; not that he can't play it, but he won't have quite the body balance. He would excel more at the interior line, like center or offensive guard. ENTPs have really quick feet, so you'll often hear that they have really good footwork. He'll tend to be a little bit more on the finesse side."--Mike Kilduff

I've never heard of anyone using the Myers-Briggs as a method of evaluating QBs. This would be fascinating if someone researched it in depth. (INTJ here.) It does not surprise me that the most successful football players are sensates (S's).

Part II of the series shows that tall QBs are better than short QBs. It gets good in Part III, where we learn that QBs with big arms are better than QBs with weak arms.