Claiborne gets a 4 in the wonderlic

[K-9]

A 10 or a 13 is one thing, but a 4? Come on, I think most of us have taken a sample wonderlic, or at least seen the questions. 1.) A 4 indicates not just low intelligence, but some SEVERE mental shortcomings. Possibly even retardation.

 

Maybe this was masked in a top ranked college program loaded with talent and good coaching, 2.) but in the NFL where the playbooks are far more complex, and the talent far and away above what he is used to seeing every week, I have to question how he can succeed.

 

At the very least GM's should be very concerned about what they are getting in this guy. 3.) Vince Young and his limited brainpower couldn't handle being an NFL starter, and Claiborne makes him look like a genius.

 

1.) A 4 on the Wonderlic indicates NONE of those things.

 

2.) NFL playbooks are thicker, especially for the offense, but they aren't any more complicated. They are 90% schematic diagrams (drawings) and 10% written words. The playbooks for the defense are FAR less complicated and of all the defensive positions, CB requires the least amount of information to learn and absorb.

 

3.) QB has the most information to learn and absorb BY FAR, than any other position on the field, while CB has the least.

 

While I've known this to be true since they started administering the Wonderlic in the NFL, it was nice to hear Charley Casserly on Path to the Draft yesterday bring it up. That is that a low score on the Wonderlic usually indicates a reading problem and teams have other tests they use for players with these issues if they think it's warranted. He also underscored the point that if Clairborne were a QB or OLman teams would be far more concerned as those positions require the most material to be learned. And Casserly also reiterated that CBs have the least.

 

GO BILLS!!!

[Mango]

Ok, let's say he can't read. He supposedly made it through high school and college, yet he can't read? Doesn't that still suggest he has some sort of major learning disability at the very least, if not full fledged mental slowness? It also obviously suggests LSU was doing something less than legit to keep him in good academic standing.

 

Non athlete students all over the country graduate hs and college without being able to read. It is the nature of the American scholastic system to push everybody through. It is sad but not lsu or athlete specific

[Beastly Dareus]

A timed test like the Wonderlic (12 minutes) for someone with a reading disability would be incredibly difficult and frustrating. His score doesn't suggest he's "retarded" Turbo. It may suggest the kid has some literacy issues. Wonderlic Inc. sets a score of 10 as indicating normal adult literacy.

 

Or Claiborne is just an immature hot-shot and didn't even try to successfully complete the test? I have no idea, but it wouldn't be unprecedented.

 

Great post Zulu. Agree with everything you wrote except the assumption in your last sentence

 

Ok, let's say he can't read. He supposedly made it through high school and college, yet he can't read? Doesn't that still suggest he has some sort of major learning disability at the very least, if not full fledged mental slowness? It also obviously suggests LSU was doing something less than legit to keep him in good academic standing.

 

I don't know if your just uninformed or your just plain ignorant with your post. Firstly, do some research. Google Maurice Claiborne, not hard, and you will see hes had learning disability questions coming out of high school.

 

Secondly, Every high school and college has an academic program to assist students with learning disabilities. These programs make it possible for people who have literacy problems to get through high school and college. In elementary, middle school and high school most refer to it as "special education" class. Where students receive 1 on 1 attention, which my 3 younger brothers received help. All three of them have major reading and writing disabilities but successfully graduated from high school. They received enough assistance to learn how to make their disability less noticeable. They do not take the same classes as the regular student in most cases, they have a separate course schedule program. Instead of them receiving the standard NYS Regents diploma, they received what is known as the Local Diploma.

 

Often times the high school program is a joke because some of the teachers just don't care so the student doesn't get the necessary help they are seeking. In some cases the services are extraordinary and make a huge difference in the literacy capabilities of the student. However, most the times teachers aren't very helpful and will do the work for the student instead of guiding them, which doesn't help them. People are born with learning disabilities because their brain either is neither fully developed or the wiring somewhere is hindered.

 

In college, there are programs such as the Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP) program. HEOP provides services to students with both financial and academic disabilities that would not be able to attend under their present circumstances. It is set up almost exactly like the high school program, however; usually the HEOP programs do a great job with providing academic services for students that have reading problems, writing problems or logistic problems. So no your logic and reasoning is flawed, just because Claiborne got through college does not mean LSU was "doing something less than legit." Anyone that has spent time in the educational system or does the research is aware of these programs.

 

Lastly, LSU has a very complicated playbook. He succeeded on the field in both high school and college. He is a top 5 prospect because of his talent not his intelligence.

 

You don't need to be a genius to cover someone and read an offense, especially if you have played the game all your life. Look at Darrell Revis, Sean Taylor, and Patrick Peterson among the many more NFL CB's that have scored a 10 or lower on the wonderlic. And how about Hall of Fame Quarterback Dan Marino scoring a 14? Or even Michael Oher who received special academic tutoring all his educational career and had a bad wonderlic score but now hes one of the best LT's in the NFL and does a great job pick up defensive signals and adjusting.

[NoSaint]

Have you ever taken a Wonderlic? You are right when you say it only measures what it measure. Just like combine results. A 40 time doesn't tell you how well someone plays football. It only tells you how fast someone runs the 40. But I wouldn't sign a CB who runs a 5.5.

 

I have taken a Wonderlic, btw, and I would be seriously concerned about any player scoring a 4. Did he even bother to try? Can he read? NFL playbooks aren't that simple (some old one are available online). You have to at least be able to read.

 

 

allegedly he cant really read well (if at all).

 

i get both sides of the argument. These days information is so free that it would be hard to totally hide a literacy issue or something of the sort from a team that high in the pack - odds are everyone knew about MC to some degree. but especially for some of the midrounders that you dont have big books on, this can be a redflag on whos coaches you should maybe make sure you talk to extra. see if theres a disability, if certain accomodations accounted for helping him through it with the playbook or if theres a work ethic issue etc... basically, do we need to dig deeper or not. in that sense i dont think its as worthless as many claim.

[Ramius]

Have you ever taken a Wonderlic? You are right when you say it only measures what it measure. Just like combine results. A 40 time doesn't tell you how well someone plays football. It only tells you how fast someone runs the 40. But I wouldn't sign a CB who runs a 5.5.

 

I have taken a Wonderlic, btw, and I would be seriously concerned about any player scoring a 4. Did he even bother to try? Can he read? NFL playbooks aren't that simple (some old one are available online). You have to at least be able to read.

 

Using the wonderlic to try to measure a player's football intelligence (and general intelligence) would be like using a potato sack race to determine how fast they are. There's no correlation.

[Beastly Dareus]

Have you ever taken a Wonderlic? You are right when you say it only measures what it measure. Just like combine results. A 40 time doesn't tell you how well someone plays football. It only tells you how fast someone runs the 40. But I wouldn't sign a CB who runs a 5.5.

 

I have taken a Wonderlic, btw, and I would be seriously concerned about any player scoring a 4. Did he even bother to try? Can he read? NFL playbooks aren't that simple (some old one are available online). You have to at least be able to read.

 

That's a good question, I personally do not believe most players take the wonderlic seriously. Remember when Ellis Lankster put "meow meow meow" for most of his answers and people questioned his character

 

Your other question, no he can't read. He has a learning disability. However, he played with a very complicated playbook at LSU and did a wonderful job. He has played this game all his life, the wonderlic test has no correlation to whether or not he can read an NFL playbook. As far as I'm concerned, the wonderlic scores are mainly looked at with QB's and OLine.

[ReturnoftheBuffaloBeast23]

All you that say you wouldn't take him because of a (Allen Iverson Voice) wonderlic test score, not game a but a test score, not his mesureables, not his speed but a test score (end AI Voice). Is the test score gonna have you believe he's gonna get more or less Interceptions for touchdowns? Would any of you taken Patrick Peterson (Corner from LSU) or AJ Green who both scored a 4 last year? Yea I thought you would.. Some of you are doomed to ride the short bus for the rest of your lives... All this over a test.. Seriously? I'd want McElroy to do my taxes but Id take Newton to be my quarterback. This is football a test can't prove if your good or not.

Edited April 4, 2012 by ReturnoftheBuffaloBeast23

[hondo in seattle]

Using the wonderlic to try to measure a player's football intelligence (and general intelligence) would be like using a potato sack race to determine how fast they are. There's no correlation.

 

I agree it's not a great correlation but I wouldn't say 'there's no correlation.' It's gotta be harder on the coaching staff to make a guy with a 4 wonderlic score understand a defense than a guy with a 40.

 

There's a reason many football teams look at Wonderlic scores. That's because at least some football professionals do see a correlation.

 

Wasn't one of Edwards downfalls as a Defensive Coordinator that he made his defense too complicated? In other words, some of our players weren't bright enough to execute his good ideas quickly and instinctively. If I was a DC, I'd want bright players who could quickly grasp what I was trying to do. If I didn't have those kind of players, I'd have to "dumb down" the defense. Wanny is supposedly dumbing-down our D this year. But how dumb do we want him to go? You want to retain some complexity to make it difficult for opposing offenses to scheme against us.

 

Obviously I'd rather have a super athlete with a 4 wonderlic playing DB than a fair athlete with a 40.

 

But if I had a choice between one super athlete with a 4 and another with a 40, I'd choose the guy with the 40.

 

As for the imperfection of the Wonderlic... I'm surprised nobody's created an intelligence test specifically for football players that looks at the kinds of things football minds need to be good at. As someone commented earlier, playbooks are mostly diagrams. So a football IQ test would measure, amongst other things, an ability to understand diagrams.

[NoSaint]

All you that say you wouldn't take him because of a (Allen Iverson Voice) wonderlic test score, not game a but a test score, not his mesureables, not his speed but a test score (end AI Voice). Is the test score gonna have you believe he's gonna get more or less Interceptions for touchdowns? Would any of you taken Patrick Peterson (Corner from LSU) or AJ Green who both scored a 4 last year? Yea I thought you would.. Some of you are doomed to ride the short bus for the rest of your lives... All this over a test.. Seriously? I'd want McElroy to do my taxes but Id take Newton to be my quarterback. This is football a test can't prove if your good or not.

well, neither scored a 4. so theres that. this is the lowest score in over a decade i believe.

 

and depending on what i found to cause the 4, there are reasons that would cause me to pass on a player. a test certainly cant prove it, or we would have one already and the draft would have no busts. heck, film doesnt even prove it.

[Kelly the Dog]

A few points...

 

Of all the positions in the game outside of kicker, CB would seem to be easily the easiest to learn responsibilities, let alone a playbook, even if you had a learning disability.

 

Not being able to read does not mean you are a dumb person, or incapable of learning complex things that are explained to you verbally.

 

A person who is labelled illiterate or has a learning disability or cannot read does not mean that they cannot read or understand a single word. It's usually they do not recognize words they know very well, or even more often, they cannot understand words they do not know or hear a lot, especially in context. So in a lot of cases, depending on the severity of the learning disability, it would be relatively easy for Claiborne to be able to read and understand a playbook by seeing and recognizing the same basic 20-30 words. Listening to Claiborne speak, he does not seem like an uneducated or dumb guy one bit.

[CodeMonkey]

A 4? Is that even possible? Only answering the multiple choice and selecting the first answer every time would almost certainly give you a score higher than 4 I would think.

[Heitz]

Jim Miller just told a story about how Ralph Wilson didn't want to draft Rod Woodson back in the day because of his poor Wonderlic test score.

 

We passed and the Steelers drafted him - I think Rod's career turned out OK (and we got Shane Conlan who went on to be a Pro Bowler, but not a Hall Of Famer).

 

Point being, a low Wonderlic score doesn't really have jack to do with how a player will perform in the NFL...

Edited April 4, 2012 by Heitz

[NoSaint]

Jim Miller just told a story about how Ralph Wilson didn't want to draft Rod Woodson back in the day because of his poor Wonderlic test score.

 

We passed and the Steelers drafted him - I think Rod's career turned out OK (and we got Shane Conlan who went on to be a Pro Bowler, but not an Hall Of Famer).

 

Point being Wonderlic score doesn't really have jack to do with how a player will perform in the NFL...

 

If that story proved that point to you, I dont think you'd score well on it.

[Ramius]

I agree it's not a great correlation but I wouldn't say 'there's no correlation.' It's gotta be harder on the coaching staff to make a guy with a 4 wonderlic score understand a defense than a guy with a 40.

 

There's a reason many football teams look at Wonderlic scores. That's because at least some football professionals do see a correlation.

 

Wasn't one of Edwards downfalls as a Defensive Coordinator that he made his defense too complicated? In other words, some of our players weren't bright enough to execute his good ideas quickly and instinctively. If I was a DC, I'd want bright players who could quickly grasp what I was trying to do. If I didn't have those kind of players, I'd have to "dumb down" the defense. Wanny is supposedly dumbing-down our D this year. But how dumb do we want him to go? You want to retain some complexity to make it difficult for opposing offenses to scheme against us.

 

Obviously I'd rather have a super athlete with a 4 wonderlic playing DB than a fair athlete with a 40.

 

But if I had a choice between one super athlete with a 4 and another with a 40, I'd choose the guy with the 40.

 

As for the imperfection of the Wonderlic... I'm surprised nobody's created an intelligence test specifically for football players that looks at the kinds of things football minds need to be good at. As someone commented earlier, playbooks are mostly diagrams. So a football IQ test would measure, amongst other things, an ability to understand diagrams.

 

Given a chice between a 4 and a 40, i'd see which guy has the better on-field track record. Morris Claiborne didn't have too much trouble digesting (or understanding diagrams) for LSU's championship level defense, did he?

 

You guys are extrapolating "intelligence" much too far.

[Heitz]

If that story proved that point to you, I dont think you'd score well on it.

 

Why?

 

Did Woodson NOT score low on the Wonderlic, then go on to be a Hall of Fame player, proving (at least in his case) that the low score predicted nothing about how he was going to play in the NFL?

 

Or because of my incorrect use of "an"?

[NoSaint]

Why?

 

Did Woodson NOT score low on the Wonderlic, then go on to be a Hall of Fame player, proving (at least in his case) that the low score predicted nothing about how he was going to play in the NFL?

 

Or because of my incorrect use of "an"?

 

the test has true, false, or not enough info style questions

 

showing two players is leaving quite a large jump in the logical reasoning. almost any conclusion to the tests validity based on those two would be "not enough info" or not conclusive. you would have likely gotten questions in that realm wrong with that jump.

 

mostly it was a joke though.

Edited April 4, 2012 by NoSaint

[Heitz]

the test has true, false, or not enough info style questions

 

showing two players is leaving quite a large jump in the logical reasoning. almost any conclusion to the tests validity based on those two would be "not enough info" or not conclusive. you would have likely gotten questions in that realm wrong with that jump.

 

mostly it was a joke though.

 

Um, True?

[RealityCheck]

I agree it's not a great correlation but I wouldn't say 'there's no correlation.' It's gotta be harder on the coaching staff to make a guy with a 4 wonderlic score understand a defense than a guy with a 40.

 

There's a reason many football teams look at Wonderlic scores. That's because at least some football professionals do see a correlation.

 

Wasn't one of Edwards downfalls as a Defensive Coordinator that he made his defense too complicated? In other words, some of our players weren't bright enough to execute his good ideas quickly and instinctively. If I was a DC, I'd want bright players who could quickly grasp what I was trying to do. If I didn't have those kind of players, I'd have to "dumb down" the defense. Wanny is supposedly dumbing-down our D this year. But how dumb do we want him to go? You want to retain some complexity to make it difficult for opposing offenses to scheme against us.

 

Obviously I'd rather have a super athlete with a 4 wonderlic playing DB than a fair athlete with a 40.

 

But if I had a choice between one super athlete with a 4 and another with a 40, I'd choose the guy with the 40.

 

As for the imperfection of the Wonderlic... I'm surprised nobody's created an intelligence test specifically for football players that looks at the kinds of things football minds need to be good at. As someone commented earlier, playbooks are mostly diagrams. So a football IQ test would measure, amongst other things, an ability to understand diagrams.

Judging from your post I would almost guarantee that you would score higher than a 4. However, I would certainly guarantee that Claiborne could absorb a defensive scheme and it's corresponding playbook far better than you. For all of you mentally superior fans I find it amusing that many can't grasp what our defensive alignments actually are week after week and yet arguably the best CB in the draft is considered doomed in the NFL because of a Wonderlic score. The young man will get drafted early, he will get paid, and he will probably play very well for years to come. FWIW, the most brilliant guy I have ever been around when it comes to architectural drawings and running bridge work was borderline illiterate.

[MyHorseAteTheKid]

Dexter Manley II ????

[hondo in seattle]

Judging from your post I would almost guarantee that you would score higher than a 4. However, I would certainly guarantee that Claiborne could absorb a defensive scheme and it's corresponding playbook far better than you. For all of you mentally superior fans I find it amusing that many can't grasp what our defensive alignments actually are week after week and yet arguably the best CB in the draft is considered doomed in the NFL because of a Wonderlic score. The young man will get drafted early, he will get paid, and he will probably play very well for years to come. FWIW, the most brilliant guy I have ever been around when it comes to architectural drawings and running bridge work was borderline illiterate.

 

The Wonderlic already has it's critics and it will have many more if Claiborne becomes a star. And I think that's possible. I certainly don't think he's "doomed." I just think it's easier to coach someone with good learning/analytical skills.

 

This is from PFT:

 

Long-time Buccaneers cornerback Ronde Barber echoed on Wednesday something many have said since LSU cornerback Morris Claiborne’s score on the Wonderlic test surfaced on Tuesday: The 50-question general intelligence test is irrelevant to on-field ability.

 

“I don’t think it’s a factor,” Barber tells NFL.com. “I don’t think it really translates into the football IQ . . . I wouldn’t pay much attention to it.”

 

So why then does the NFL continue to administer the test? Former Cowboys and Dolphins coach Jimmy Johnson said Tuesday via Twitter that “90% of my misses were because I took a chance on marginal intelligence.”