NFL goes woke - Eliminates wunderlic test of general intelligence in pre-draft process

carmine9 wrote:

Did Wonderlic ever provide anything of value?

It can tell you if someone is an idiot or not. Intelligent people value such information. Idiots do not, because they are idiots. It's kind of a corollary to Dunning-Kreuger.

Terry Bradshaw was a great quarterback for his era with no distinction exactly on his Wonderlic test.

A study of 762 players from three draft classes found no correlation with football ability, except for two positions that found a negative correlation (the lower the score for tight ends and defensive backs, the better the player).

"“We found in no cases was cognitive ability related to [football] performance,” said John W. Michel, an assistant professor at Towson University who co-authored the study. “We did find a negative relationship for tight ends and defensive backs. For defensive backs, it was the most pronounced; basically, the lower you scored on the Wonderlic, the better you performed.”" Ryan Fitzgerald, with the second highest score ever in the NFL at 48/50, completed the 12 minute test in 9 minutes. Some agencies also get copies of old tests and extensively prepare their prospects for the test. Also, this is just one of multiple psychological tests they are now giving. The article also quotes Gil Brandt, no marginal scout, that he questions the toughness of players with too high wonderlic scores.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/ryan-fitzpatricks-wonderlic-score-what-does-it-mean/2011/10/20/gIQAvz51GM_story.html

xczvzxcv wrote:"The article also quotes Gil Brandt, no marginal scout, that he questions the toughness of players with too high wonderlic scores."

Well, N=1, but you can't really question Ryan Fitzpatrick's toughness.

Coaches should be able to discern enough about their prospects through interviews, grades, etc. The Wonderlic is nice, but it is not a necessity. There are positions on the field where a modicum of intelligence is a beneficial attribute in a prospect. QB and Slot Receiver are two positions where intelligence can trump physical abilities to an extent. I love Fitzmagic as a QB. To come out of the Ivy League (not exactly the SEC as far as football prospects are concerned) with moderate physical talent and to be able to play as long as he has is quite an accomplishment. He is a journeyman backup, but has almost always played for bad teams. I think if you get him on a good team, he would actually perform well. Consider that he is the only QB to have posted a winning season for the Jets since 2011 (and that is with Brady in the division) before you pan him too much. He did far better in the NFL than Jamarcus Russell (a physical talent that was dumber than a bag of hammers).

Yeah, but Jamarcus could throw it 70 yards on his knees.

Name me other jobs that require this. Not everything has to be partisan. The NFL is going woke or they're just keeping up with the times? The latter is, believe it or not, ok too. You're evaluated by your performance & your conversations with team. Don't be so upset that (largely) white management can't do IQ tests on (largely) non-white players. It's not needed. There are so many other (better) ways to evaluate talent.

flyingfrog wrote:

They need to end the 40 yd dash as well, very racist

It is actually funny. When I watch the combine I always wonder why woke liberals haven’t shut it down. Think about it, it’s a bunch of shirtless black men being measured, poked, and evaluated by a bunch of wealthy white men. It’s probably what slave trading cities looked like back in the day. Anyways, I think it’s funny and I’m surprised woke liberals haven’t shut it down. I bet they will eventually. Probably 5 years and the combine will be gone.

It's somewhat of an IQ test and few people would want their scores available online. Even for a presumably cerebral position like QB, there there have been players with low scores that have been very successful.

bricro wrote:

The ultimate "woke" QB, Colin Kaepernick, actually had a very good Wonderlic score (38).

Tom Brady scored 28, same as Peyton Manning.

Ryan Fitzpatrick aced it with a 48.

The test has little to no predictive value; it's a wonder it lasted this long.

If you look at the list of QBs, you see a really good group between like 28 and 36. So, falling in that range could be predictive. There's no rule that says you want your QB to have the highest possible score. The analytics could be more sophisticated than that.

sbeefyk2 wrote:

flyingfrog wrote:

They need to end the 40 yd dash as well, very racist

It is actually funny. When I watch the combine I always wonder why woke liberals haven’t shut it down. Think about it, it’s a bunch of shirtless black men being measured, poked, and evaluated by a bunch of wealthy white men. It’s probably what slave trading cities looked like back in the day. Anyways, I think it’s funny and I’m surprised woke liberals haven’t shut it down. I bet they will eventually. Probably 5 years and the combine will be gone.

I knew Kapernick was posting here! Belated welcomes, Colin!

busybusy wrote:

carmine9 wrote:

Did Wonderlic ever provide anything of value?

Surely there would be value in testing at the start of the career and testing again at the end to see the impact of concussions on intelligence

Good idea but better ways to do that (imaging). The NFL has NO interest in that

Kobbs Hessler wrote:

Vince Young scored a 6

Antonio Brown scored a negative -27.

Maybe they should use Crossy Road scores instead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQb78iPfLPU

Most of the activities at the NFL combine (aside from the player interviews) are not a reasonable measure of job performance at least in terms of the people invited to the combine. If you took every 21 year old male in the US, then they would be. A couple of papers have shown no positive correlation between performance at the combine and NFL success. The lone exception seems to be 40y dash in running backs---not WRs, not TEs and certainly not linemen.

The reason is that the talent pool is already selected out to be the best so the differences are so narrow already.

Also some like the bench press actually are done better by people that you don't want (shorter arms are better).

Or maybe, here is a wild idea, just watch how they played football.

Nobody has ever cared about those scores since they mean nothing.

The 40 a big deal, the bench press important. Everything else a waste of time.

Ha ha. I'm laughing, but I shouldn't as this is probably Raciam

APGAR wrote:

bricro wrote:

The ultimate "woke" QB, Colin Kaepernick, actually had a very good Wonderlic score (38).

Tom Brady scored 28, same as Peyton Manning.

Ryan Fitzpatrick aced it with a 48.

The test has little to no predictive value; it's a wonder it lasted this long.

It accurately showed whether a person was an idiot or not. There is always value in knowing which people are stupid. Always.

If you can't talk to someone in an interview and tell they are stupid, YOU'RE STUPID. Relying on some "test" is worse.