NFL players are turning to an unlikely hobby to improve their game: Chess

If you scrunch your eyes up just as an offensive line sets for a play, the outlines of the players look like chess pieces being moved around the board by some invisible hand. Some run in the straight lines followed by a rook, some follow the diagonals of a bishop, and others hold off opponents like a pawn.

If you scrunch your eyes up just as an offensive line sets for a play, the outlines of the players look like chess pieces being moved around the board by some invisible hand. Some run in the straight lines followed by a rook, some follow the diagonals of a bishop, and others hold off opponents like a pawn. It is an old, well-worn cliché in American football that the sport is simply chess played on a field, with its complex strategies used to unlock an opponent’s defense or stifle its offense. While such a cliché inevitably oversimplifies the connection between the sports, there are parallels. “Before a play starts, the pieces are set, this is the position on the chess board,” says Tennessee Titans cornerback Chidobe Awuzie. “When the play happens, it’s now the execution part of it. It’s chess to an extent but then once the play happens, it becomes football.” Awuzie is part of a growing cohort of NFL players who are taking up chess as a way to unwind, improve their strategic thinking and provide an outlet for their fierce competitiveness off the field. Even on the day of the Super Bowl in 2022, Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow was playing chess beforehand. There are so many players hooked, in fact, that Chess.com runs a tournament for current and former NFL players – the subject of a recent documentary by NFL films. Now in its fourth year, BlitzChamps features NFL players each seeking to win bragging rights and a prize pot of $30,000, which is donated to a charity of their choice.