Wonderlic scores for QBs

#2
#2
Inate intelligence is important. But football IQ is the issue. This is something that can be measured only on the field.
 
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#3
#3
Never understood why so much importance is put on this test. It's a verbal and mathematical reasoning test. I'd be much more interested in spatial reasoning and memory ability for football.
 
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#4
#4
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#5
#5
Don't get me wrong I think Josh is a smart guy, but I think what possibly he could lack in pure intelligence is made up for in work ethic, discipline, and motivation. I would rather my son grow up to be a smart young man with those attributes that Josh has, than to be in the top 1% of IQ with none of those attributes.
 
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#6
#6
Don't get me wrong I think Josh is a smart guy, but I think what possibly he could lack in pure intelligence is made up for in work ethic, discipline, and motivation. I would rather my son grow up to be a smart young man with those attributes that Josh has, than to be in the top 1% of IQ with none of those attributes.

Why not both?
 
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#7
#7
Never understood why so much importance is put on this test. It's a verbal and mathematical reasoning test. I'd be much more interested in spatial reasoning and memory ability for football.

Wonder what Terry Bradshaw would have scored on this test if they gave it when he played. LOL!
 
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#8
#8
Interesting read....

http://www.outkickthecoverage.com/nfl-quarterback-wonderlic-scores-matter-a-great-deal-042417


In case you're wondering, Josh Dobbs had a solid score of 29, which ranked 4th among QBs in this year's draft behind Brad Kaaya (34), Nathan Peterman (33)and Trevor Knight (30).

Wow, Dobbs posts a respectable 29, only four points behind that dumb, mentally incompetent 'deer in the headlights' Nate Peterman that KBVol excoriated and personally demeaned while he was here.
 
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#10
#10
Never understood why so much importance is put on this test. It's a verbal and mathematical reasoning test. I'd be much more interested in spatial reasoning and memory ability for football.

For the QB position I think it matters. Off the top of my head, I remember Akili Smith and JaMarcus Russell scoring pretty bad. Vince Young didn't do well either, but at least had a few decent years.
 
#12
#12
Don't get me wrong I think Josh is a smart guy, but I think what possibly he could lack in pure intelligence is made up for in work ethic, discipline, and motivation. I would rather my son grow up to be a smart young man with those attributes that Josh has, than to be in the top 1% of IQ with none of those attributes.
He seems to be a fine young gentleman, but I have never thought that he was some kind of genius when he spoke.
 
#13
#13
As for this test and how it plays out for lots of players goes, use the bumblebee analogy. Wing area too small to support body for flight, dumbass bee don't know it and goes ahead and flies anyway. Many guys don't know they must score high on this test to suit nurd evaluations and play like hell anyway!
 
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#14
#14
For the QB position I think it matters. Off the top of my head, I remember Akili Smith and JaMarcus Russell scoring pretty bad. Vince Young didn't do well either, but at least had a few decent years.

Theres also been people with really high scores who never really do anything. Greg McElroy had one of the highest scores ever. Ryan Fitzpatrick did too but hes never been anything and throws ints like crazy.
 
#15
#15
Never understood why so much importance is put on this test. It's a verbal and mathematical reasoning test. I'd be much more interested in spatial reasoning and memory ability for football.

I agree with your overall thoughts but here is where I think it can be helpful...

1. It's a timed test. How quickly can you solve the problem could be important for a QB who is trying to read a defense. Many of the problems contain information not required to answer the problems. How quickly can someone filter and process all of the information to figure out the correct response is key. I think its more important for QBs and OLs than WRs since they have to process many different looks/schemes/coverages to make the right call.

2. If a test taker just blows through a test, that may identify a character flaw


There are obvious flaws. For example, not knowing the definition of a word has no bearing on whether or not you can process information quickly. It should be noted that the team with the highest Wonderlic scores in the NFL is the Patriots so maybe it has more value than I think.
 
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#16
#16
Never understood why so much importance is put on this test. It's a verbal and mathematical reasoning test. I'd be much more interested in spatial reasoning and memory ability for football.

Just one of many tools used to assess players. Like any tool the NFL uses, sometimes the test lines up and is predictive, sometimes it doesn't. Just one part of the aggregate.
 
#17
#17
Theres also been people with really high scores who never really do anything. Greg McElroy had one of the highest scores ever. Ryan Fitzpatrick did too but hes never been anything and throws ints like crazy.


The problem with your logic is McElroy wasn't talented enough to be an NFL player. I took two sample tests last week and scored a 44. I'm not starting on a NFL team for the same reason that McElroy isn't...I'm not talented enough.
 
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#18
#18
ok....who took the test?

It's a little harder than you may think. I got a 21....didn't even make it to 30 questions. Some of that is due to computer speed....but, it's not that easy when being timed.
 
#19
#19
Was Dobbs hammered when he took it?

I just looked it up...he was blindfolded!
 
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#21
#21
Dobbs was just trying to make his draft status that more intriguing. Good score regardless.
 
#22
#22
There seems to be some confusion in this thread on how to interpret the test scores.

For his 1984 classic “The New Thinking Man’s Guide to Pro Football,” Sports Illustrated writer Paul “Dr. Z” Zimmerman did get one anonymous staffer to spill some then-current averages. Offensive tackles led the way at 26, then came centers (25), quarterbacks (24), offensive guards (23), tight ends (22), safeties and middle linebackers (21), defensive linemen and outside linebackers (19), cornerbacks (18), wide receivers and fullbacks (17), and halfbacks (16). And what about place kickers and punters? “Who cares?” the source said.

On its own, a solid Wonderlic score means little. Like a 40-yard dash time, it provides one tiny, standardized data point to employers who presumably take a holistic approach to hiring. But because teams have decades of data on file, they can compare the Wonderlic scores of current college players entering the draft to those of past prospects. “They simply use it to find the extremes,” Foster said. A very low score or a very high score, he added, could lead teams to conduct more testing or look into the prospect more closely.

The most famous extreme occurred in 1975, when Harvard receiver and punter Pat McInally reportedly scored a perfect 50 on the Wonderlic. The Cincinnati Bengals picked him in the fifth round of that year’s draft, but not before his reputed intelligence reportedly scared some teams away. In 2011, McInally told the Los Angeles Times that Young informed him that acing the Wonderlic “may have cost you a few rounds in the draft because we don’t like extremes. We don’t want them too dumb and we sure as hell don’t want them too smart

.F. Wonderlic acknowledged that the single best predictor of job performance was previous work experience. But as Charles Wonderlic put it: “How do you predict someone’s performance if they have never done that job before?” The second-best predictor of job performance, E.F. Wonderlic reasoned, was cognitive ability.

“What he found was that different jobs had different cognitive demands ranging from very low to very high,” said Charles Wonderlic, E.F.’s grandson. “And there were really distinct IQs around each job. And the further away you got from that distribution, that’s when you started to experience problems.”

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-a-multiple-choice-test-became-a-fixture-of-the-nfl-draft/

My guess is that since the ideal score for a QB is 24 Josh erred on the high side just so they wouldn't realize he was gaming the test, a simple feat for a rocket scientist. In any event, according to the article cited, Josh's score might make him far more attractive to NFL GMs than the guys noted by the OP with higher scores. After all, his score is more in line for what you're looking for in the QB position but since everyone knows he's incredibly smart he needs to show that yeah he is a bit smarter than the average - but not too smart for the job in question. Pretty smart of Josh if you ask me. :)
 
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#23
#23
Dobbs is smart for a football player, but he isn't some sort of Einstein.

Good grief.
 
#25
#25
Wonderlic is a waste. Ryan Fitzpatrick scored like a billion and he couldn't play dead in a western.

A Wonderlic score will not make up for a talent deficiency. Fitzpatrick did not play D-1 ball and he was a 7th round draft choice. Very few non D-1 7th rounders throw/run for 179 TDs and over 25K yards.
 
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