The Giants showed impressive improvement in their rollicking contest versus the Cowboys.
They usually go to Jerry World and get cold-cocked.
Not this time.
Eagles clipped the Chiefs again.
Explications of the Packer Apocalypse abound. Few of them if any focus on cognitive load.
Or in this case cognitive overload.
I don't usually write of one Jayden Daniels, M.D. But his reaction time vis-a-vis the Cheeseheads seemed afflicted by brain fog. A classic cause of said fog is cognitive overload.
Power lifters have known this for years. Frying the CNS is not only a drain on performance but a generator of injury. Power lifters often speak of managing stress. They know they pay dearly by not doing so.
It isn't that pro football teams don't recognize this. How many times have we heard: We don't want them thinking too much. That's cognitive overload.
What concerns me about the phenomenal Mr. Daniels is his use of Virtual Reality and its potential for adding to rather than processing his cognitive load.
I doubt judicious use has any contraindicating effects. But say you use it--VR-- to compensate for a short week. Using it for mental reps in lieu of physical exertion. Thinking its the physical exertion that is the overload. Nobody has studied this that I know of. But the concern is it contributes to stress-induced brain fog by giving the brain too much to do.
Young players aren't immune to brain fog. They demonstrate it all the time. That's why a lot of them don't play. They haven't adapted to the load.
They literally have a load on their mind.
Visiting teams on Thursday Nights are overloaded. They lose almost 60% of the time. Visiting QBRs are way lower than home team QBRs.
It is a rip off.
There is nothing we can do about it.
But maybe not hold it against the visiting teams.