THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
As you are supposed to be aware, the National Football League's season is now a 24/7/365 affair. Or at least, the league would like it to be. A couple of weeks after the Super Bowl, where the football media finishes regurgitating what we saw in the big game, a new cycle begins at the end of February, with The Combine. Since in fact the official start of the “NFL Year”, when contracts expire and free agents can be signed, is the Ides of March (no irony intended, of course). This means the NFL actually starts its new year before its new year begins. Of course they also ban tampering with players still under contract to teams, but have a period before the start of the new year when tampering is not tampering.
The Combine is an event, held in Indianapolis' Lucas Oil Stadium, where an invited group of former college players are tested and measured and interviewed as the next step in the process leading up the Draft, at the end of April. But this year's Combine differed from the past in a number of ways.
First, it was held in the evenings, under the Lucas Oil dome, in order for the NFL Network to broadcast it in prime time. Yes, there is an audience to watch potential players run 40 yard dashes, demonstrate the height of their vertical jumps, run around cones, or show how many times they can bench press 225 pounds. They run drills, without pads or contact, which can demonstrate quarterbacks' arm strength, receivers' quickness, linemen's agility and so on. Teams can also get 18 minute private interviews with players in whom they have interest, and, usually, are within reasonable expectation of being available when their draft pick comes around. And the players get a full medical evaluation at a local hospital which has nothing better to do, like deal with people who are sick.
The main deviation from the past, however, was the dropping of the Wonderlic test. Both the NFL Players' Association and NFL Vice President Troy Vincent, a former player, agreed that it no longer served a purpose.
The Wonderlic is a “cognitive ability” test which consists of 50 multiple choice questions to be answered in 12 minutes. The results of the exam are legendary, and that is part of the problem. Although the scores were supposed to be kept confidential, they often leaked out; more often nowadays when dozens of “insiders” are chasing “nuggets” they can tweet before the other insiders. The NFL's ability to keep secrets has always been questionable: remember Tom Brady's cellphone, or Jon Gruden's message exchanges with Washington Then Skins president Bruce Allen? Vincent also questioned what relevance the test had to actual football playing talent, and there he might have had a point.
The best ever Wonderlic score, a perfect 50, belonged to Pat McInally, a wide receiver and punter from Harvard who had a long career with the Bengals, though primarily as a punter in later years. Mike Mamula, a defensive end from Penn, scored 49; another Harvard guy, Ryan Fitzpatrick had 48, left before the 12 minutes was up, and later said he'd left one question blank. Also at 48 were Alabama QB Greg McIlroy, Utah State WR Kevin Curtis and Georgia TE Ben Watson. Another Harvard guy, center/tackle Matt Birk, scored 46. Mamula and McIlroy had limited NFL success, but all the others were valuable contributors. I guess that speaks well for the “Ivory” League, as my college offensive coordinator referred to the Ivies. (After I missed a practice to do a poetry reading at Trinity College, selected as part of the Connecticut Student Poets Tour, he also referred to me as the team's “poet lariat”.)
Of the lowest six scores we know about, three players were not drafted at all. Running back Frank Gore had a long career and is a contender for the Hall of Fame. Gore and quarterback Vince Young, who never equaled his college success on the pro field, both scored sixes, but the lowest score ever belonged to defensive back Morris Claiborne. His career was erratic, but good; after he retired he was revealed to suffer from a learning disability, which apparently hadn't stopped his attending LSU and remaining eligible for football for three years. But the context of that learning disability was also cited as a reason not to force players to take the test.
Ben Watson himself pointed out, these tests don't reflect football ability, but it seems to me they might still reflect a certain amount of ability to process quickly (I am thinking about the “reads” virtually everyone in today's NFL has to make to execute their assignments). If the point of the combine is to give teams as much information as possible on their future draft picks, you wonder why they shouldn't be able to have that test, to evaluate as they pleased. One last point, however: the value of the test may have been diluted by the fact many combine candidates have, of course, already left their colleges, and enrolled in centers like the IMG Academy, where they are “prepped” for the Combine. They get tips on lowering their 40 times (really, have you ever seen anyone besides sprinters run with their hands held stiff in karate chop position? Anyone other than actors, who get the same sort of coaching?), raising their weight lifting power, cutting the edges on the cone drill and the like. They also used to be given coaching and practice tests for the Wonderlic, like the high school students who can afford tutoring in test taking for the SATS, doing practice tests and cramming.
There was only one way for Iron Mike to make his own evaluation (by the way, Iron Mike hates people who refer to themselves in the third person), so I (he?) decided to take the full test myself and see how that might affect my draft position.
Full sample tests are available on line. I should confess I once did this as a stunt for our late night NFL on Channel Five; between our breaks, I did a ten question sample test in two and a half minutes, and I scored 10/10, defeating the program host, who will remain unnamed and unshamed here. But I was so much younger then!
My final score on the full Wonderlic, this time around, was 40 out of 50. I actually completed 48 of the questions, leaving one blank, but I was rushing toward the end. I suspect that if I'd been doing it on paper I would have done all 50 questions, because having to scroll and click and advance each page with the mouse took some time, and I needed a pencil and paper for a couple of the math questions, which meant I had to take my hand off the mouse (that is not a euphemism). I suspect I would have been better if I'd taken my morning walk with the dog first. Or, failing that, taken 40 years off my age.
What you realize after taking it is that the speed required for the test is one of its main values; you are literally reasoning under increasing pressure, which I think relates to the experience of playing. It can get confusing as you pick the odd one out (ophthalmologist/optician/orthopedist/dentist) I got wrong because I forgot an optician only measures eyes, or word meanings (I missed that legend and key are, of course, synonyms in one sense of each word) and I had trouble trying to visualize which edges of two dimensional drawings wind up touching when folded into three dimensions though I got one right by just guessing the simplest reply). I'd say half my wrong answers were “stupid” mistakes, that is, not reading the question or answers carefully enough.
My 40 puts me in pretty good company, for someone from the Little Three. Among quarterbacks I'm equal with Carson Wentz and Alex Smith; Alex and I broadcast a Super Bowl together for the BBC, in a meeting of minds, apparently. Eli Manning and Brian Griese checked in at 39, Colin Kaepernick and Matt Stafford at 38, Tony Romo, NFL bust Akili Smith and Andrew Luck at 37, Aaron “Ivermectin” Rodgers and Matt “HotTub” Leinart at 35, Ryan Tannehill at 34 and Brady at 33. There are a lot of bright guys there, and the scores in the thirties are full of NFL quarterbacks who had limited careers. In fact, I was surprised at how many guys with relatively high scores came through NFL Europe when I was covering it: what they say about smarts and processing ability being as important to QBs as arm strength may well be true. The lowest QB score belonged to Oscar Davenport, at 6; he was never drafted. Terrell Pryor was a seven; he played both QB and WR in the NFL. Jeff George was a 10.
Randy Moss scored 12, Torry Holt (“The Torry You Can Support” as I used to call him on late night NFL, though no one came after me like they did Gary Lineker) scored 11 and when I looked at running backs I was surprised the very troubled Lawrence Phillips about whom I wrote when he died in prison, because of my up and down relationship with him when he played in Barcelona scored a respectable 23, better than, say, Christian McCaffrey (21) or Dalvin Cook (11), but not as good as Zeke Elliott's 32.
What those lists tell us is that the Wonderlic really doesn't predict much. I suspect you could use it as a factor in edging toward a guy with less physical ability than someone else, on the grounds he might be better able to deal with the complexities of reading the play. For example, one of the biggest problems for receivers transitioning to the NFL is understanding what the defense is doing, because they run “option” routes which differ depending on what they're facing. If they and the quarterback read things differently, the ball often goes into empty space, or gets intercepted.
It also tells us that if Wesleyan tight end Mike Carlson, 6’ 3”, 195, good hands, no speed, mediocre (if try hard) blocker, wants a career in pro football he better stick to commentary. Or journalism.
