Sleep may play an important role in how long an NFL draftee remains with his original team, say researchers.
BOSTON—Collegiate performance, face-to-face interviews, the professional scouting combine, and personality assessments such as the Wonderlic test are among the ways in which National Football League (NFL) teams evaluate their potential draft picks. And now, according to researchers, NFL teams may also want to assess the quality of sleep that their future multi-millionaire players are getting.
In findings reported at the 26th Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, investigators found that less sleepy professional football players tend to remain with their drafting team longer than professional football players who are not getting adequate sleep.
Among the 55 players who were drafted by the NFL and evaluated, players who had an Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) score of 8 or higher had a 38.5% chance of staying with the team that had originally drafted them. In contrast, players with an ESS score of 7 or lower had a 56.3% chance of remaining with their original team.
“With so much at stake when a professional football team makes a selection in the NFL draft, taking into consideration degree of sleepiness may help to maximize draft value,” reported W. Christopher Winter, MD, President/Owner of Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine in Virginia, and colleagues.
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