Arizona Cardinals quarterback Carson Palmer is having an MVP-caliber season. And he might just attribute some of his recent success to virtual reality.
Last year, the Arizona Cardinals became one of the first NFL teams to train with virtual reality headsets.
And in Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback (MMQB) column for Sports Illustrated, the team's valuable veteran quarterback talked about virtual reality and how much it’s helped him prepare for games.
“It’s phenomenal,” Palmer told SI. “I don’t buy in to all the new technology — I’m archaic and I thought, ‘There is no way this can change the way I play quarterback.’ But I am all in on this.”
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Palmer, who was the first overall pick in the 2003 NFL Draft, says he’s a “dinosaur” and was a “naysayer in the beginning" with regards to virtual reality, only begrudgingly trying the tech when his team adopted it in 2014.
The 35-year-old starting quarterback is nonetheless an old-fashioned guy. He says he still needs his team’s playbook in a three-ring binder instead of using a Surface tablet like many NFL players; and yet, he is all about using the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset — usually to review plays and practice what he’s going to see on the field.
Using software created by STRIVR Labs, which builds sports training programs for virtual reality headsets, Palmer says he uses the VR headset to practice football plays from every angle, watching the placement of his arm and elbow as he whips the ball, and see why a play either failed or succeeded.
With all this new technology, perhaps it’s no surprise then that Palmer’s Arizona Cardinals are 7-2 this season, ranking first in the NFC Western Division. Their next game comes Sunday versus the Cincinnati Bengals, who have an equally impressive 8-1 record this season.
Palmer's story is the perfect example of why many believe virtual reality and its close cousin augmented reality are the future of personal computing. It's the kind of medium that can adapt to anything from education to travel to gaming.
The ultimate goal for those working on virtual reality and augmented reality is to replace all the screens in your life with lenses that display whatever you need, when you need it. We're a long way off from that, but several companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and the startup Magic Leap have already started experimenting with how to make that a reality.
You can learn more about Palmer and how he prepares for NFL games, both with and without virtual reality, over at Sports Illustrated.
