Stray Arrows: Why I Like The Wonderlic
Most of you will probably remember how much I wrote about the Wonderlic and its value heading up to the draft. Mostly, I used the Wonderlic to argue against us picking Ryan Clady, who scored a paltry 13 on the test; and for us picking Chris Williams, who scored a 32 (Branden Albert scored a 23). Luckily, Clady’s a Denver Bronco. I took some heat for putting so much stock in the Wonderlic, but I feel like it is a great way to assess a player’s ability to think critically under fire. Especially offensive lineman and quarterbacks.
Well, now author/blogger Ben Fry has come out with a kickass blog post which totally backs that point of view. From Ben Fry’s blog:
Wonderlic himself says that basically, the scores decrease as you move further away from the ball, which is interesting but unsurprising. It’s sort of obvious that a quarterback needs to be on the smarter side, but I was curious to see what this actually looked like.
Offense is shown in blue, defense in red. You can see the quarterback with a 24, the center (over 6 feet and around 300 lbs.) averaging higher at 25, and the outside linemen even a little higher. Presumably this is because the outside linemen need to mentally quick (as well as tough) to read the defense and respond to it. Those are the wide receivers (idiot loud mouths) with the 17s on the outside.
More evidence for the Wonderlic:
I’ll also happily point out that the linemen for the Patriots all score above average for their position:
Fascinating stuff and pretty unrefutable evidence in favor of the old Wonderlic.
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Off topic, but important. Dorsey will be in camp today. From Bob Gretz’s new blog:
Dorsey Agees To Terms
July 26, 2008 - Bob Gretz |
From River Falls, Wisconsin
There’s a very simple fact that is the engine that drives all negotiations. It doesn’t matter if two countries are negotiating a treaty or a parent is trying to convince junior to eat his peas. The only way any negotiation reaches a conclusion is if all parties want there to be an ending.
On Friday, there were finally two parties at the negotiating table looking to make a deal in the talks between the Chiefs and No. 1 choice Glenn Dorsey.
We can tell you exclusively that Dorsey agreed to a contract late Friday evening. Terms are sketchy but the numbers that will likely be thrown around the most are $50 million if he maxes out all the bonuses in the contract. The guaranteed money will be in the neighborhood of $22 million.
The defensive tackle out of LSU is expected here in River Falls on Saturday to sign the deal and get to work.
July 26th, 2008 at 6:55 amif true thats just freakin awesome
July 26th, 2008 at 8:02 ami dont much care for carl but this year the man has to get an A+
Interesting point, but if you examine the chart, it only seems to be very signifcant for offense, not defense. The defensive scores are pretty close (17-20) versus the offensive range (16-26)
July 27th, 2008 at 12:33 pm