Seahawks starting Jayden Daniels-like virtual-reality training for rookie QB Jalen Milroe
It turned around Jayden Daniels’ career and life.
Can it jump start fellow young quarterback Jalen Milroe’s transition from college to the NFL?
Coach Mike Macdonald and the Seahawks are about to find out if virtual reality for Milroe can do even a hint of what it’s done for Daniels, the Washington Commanders and Louisiana State Tigers.
“Me and my new head coach, we talked about doing that. So from now until game one, I’m going to utilize that,” Milroe said last weekend at rookie minicamp.
They were his first practices as a Seahawk, at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center Friday through Sunday.
The Seahawks selected the University of Alabama quarterback in the third round of the NFL draft the previous week. Seattle’s decision-makers did so as much or more for Milroe’s promise than his present.
Macdonald, new offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak and general manager John Schneider see Milroe as a potentially game-breaking runner.
The Seahawks also see a passer who needs to develop. He knows he needs better balance, core, footwork and other mechanics throwing the football.
“Yeah, absolutely,” Milroe said.
“So the biggest thing is, everything works from the ground up at the core position, understanding the lower half mechanics of how I operate. Every quarterback is different.
“And so (I’m) doing a really deep understanding of how my body functions at the core position with throwing a ball. Understanding how to distribute my body when it comes to the lower half mechanics and things like that, it’s been a focus for us.”
Then there is the speed of the NFL game, plus its complex defenses.
That’s where VR comes in.
The Seahawks are in the early stages of trying virtual reality with Milroe. They are borrowing the idea from what LSU’s football performance staff did when Daniels won the Heisman Trophy in college in 2023, and what Commanders offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury used with Daniels in his wondrous rookie NFL season of 2024.
The Seahawks are exploring when to have Milroe start wearing a VR headset off the field, to help the rookie quarterback process reading defenses, feeling and reacting to NFL game speed and anticipating plays in his mind.
“We are kind of in the exploratory mode right now on that and how that’s going to come to life,” Macdonald said last weekend.
Jayden Daniels’ VR a huge success
Four years ago, Daniels was struggling with reading defenses and anticipating plays as the quarterback for Arizona State. He threw as many interceptions as touchdown passes (10) for ASU in 2021.
He transferred to LSU for the 2022 season. As detailed by The Athletic in October, 2024, and multiple other stories out of Washington and nationally since, two men on LSU’s athletic department’s performance innovation team saw a prototype from a German company that was using VR for football players.
Business partners Verina Kau and Christian Hartman founded Cognilize in Giessen, Germany, six years ago. Their company was initially for soccer players to use VR. But their product wasn’t catching on with European footballers.
So they came to the U.S. and pitched it to LSU, at the same time Daniels was still struggling to break through, this time as a transfer QB from Arizona State.
Days after Daniels used Cognilize’s VR for the first time, on Sept. 16, 2023, he completed 30 of 34 passes for 361 yards for LSU at Mississippi State. He had four total touchdowns and over 400 yards of offense by himself. LSU won 41-14.
Daniels was sold on VR. He kept soaring using it, all the way to the Heisman Trophy that 2023 season. He went from a struggling college transfer QB to the second pick in the 2024 NFL draft, by the Commanders.
Washington selected him on the agreement the team would continue Daniels’ use of VR between games and seasons. The Commanders are believed to be the first team to use virtual reality with quarterbacks.
Yeah, it worked for Daniels in Washington, too.
He completed 69% of his passes as Washington’s debuting QB, with 25 touchdowns and nine interceptions. He was the NFL offensive rookie of the year. He led the previously floundering Commanders to a 12-5 regular season and the NFC championship game in January. It was the franchise’s first title game in 33 years.
Kingsbury, the Commanders’ offensive coordinator and former Arizona Cardinals head coach, calls the VR headset system Daniels uses a “flight simulator” for quarterbacks.
VR plays images of games and defenses for Daniels at 1.75 times normal game speed. The idea is the user’s brain adapts to the faster speed of the VR, thus processes decisions more quickly. That makes actual games slow down in the quarterback’s mind — the opposite of what it normally does with younger QBs new to the NFL.
The VR system’s German designers estimate the quarterback using it gains 250-300 extra “mental reps” per game week — and without the physical exertion, of course.
Macdonald calls those “cheap reps.”
VR for Seahawks quarterbacks
It’s only a matter of time before the rest of the NFL — the rest of the sport, at all levels — gets into VR.
That time appears to be now for the Seahawks.
If it helps Milroe, new starter Sam Darnold and veteran backup Drew Lock also may soon be wearing virtual-reality headsets around the team’s quarterback meetings and facility this spring into summer.
“So we’re in the beginning stages of that project,” Macdonald said, “but that’s the intent right now, is to kind of go down that road and see how it can help all our quarterbacks — and even other positions, too. Running-back protections. Punt protection. Kind of, there is no end in sight with the possibilities.
“So that’s exciting.”
And efficient. And promising.
“For Jalen and the quarterbacks, specifically, you’re only going to get so many full-speed reps out there,” Macdonald said. “How do you change tempos? How do you do things like that where you can be creative where you can get these really great, cheap reps, and stack those on top of each other? So when he does get his opportunities in practice, he can make the most of them?
“Yeah, I mean, seems like it’s all positive all the way around.”
This story was originally published May 7, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
