SAN ANTONIO — A.J. Smith wanted to give the San Antonio Brahmas quarterbacks a head start in his offense. All he needed was a 360-degree camera and some virtual reality goggles.

Smith, the Brahmas first-year offensive coordinator, used a cutting-edge technology that he helped develop to allow his signal callers to see the field through a VR headset.

“The traditional film teaches. This trains. You’re putting your eyes exactly there, the same timing since it’s video,” Smith said. “It’s like he’s right there.”

The Brahmas quarterbacks typically used the VR headsets for almost 15 minutes per day during training camp, watching the 7-on-7 portion of practice.

“It puts you in the real quarterback position where you can actually see it from a realistic angle,” said Brahmas quarterback Quentin Dormady. “You think guys are open, but really, from the quarterback’s angle, it might be a little bit tighter.”

It’s a point of view that you can’t get from traditional film study.

“How you would typically install is you have the play on the piece of paper, and you look at it and then they show film of it being run,” said Brahmas quarterback Chase Garbers. “But with this you get to see it live, from a quarterback perspective.”

Which helps with things like footwork, timing with receivers and anticipating throws.

“Maybe on the field, he’s not seeing it. But he gets on that headset and he sees it not one time, not five times, maybe 10, 20, a hundred times if he wants to,” Smith said. 

Repetition on the virtual reality goggles that helped flatten the learning curve in the Brahmas' new offense.

“When we first got here from training camp, we were able to go back and watch old cut-ups from the previous four or five years of A.J.’s stuff,” Dormady said.

“Being able to see that first, then going out on the field and repping it just adds more mental reps,” Garbers said. “And in a way, physical reps that you wouldn’t have otherwise.”

And that allows Coach Smith to get his offense fine-tuned faster.

“I’ll look at a concept, and if it’s hard to read in virtual reality, I’ll take it out,” Smith said. “If I can’t do it on the headset, why am I gonna ask him to do it in real life?”