Wonderlic Test Eliminated from Pre-Draft Process

[bigK14094]

Intellectual capability can be judged by interview to some degree.  A college transcript might be another way.  I know I would ask for such information...and that is legit by any employment laws I am aware of.  I went through this kind of adjustment in tactics as laws changed in my 40 years in the corporate world where I  made hiring decisions by the hundreds.  Truly capable interviewers will find out a lot,  but decisions will still be hard and somewhat a gamble.  The loss of this specific test is not a significant  loss IMHO.  Some  coaches preach the business like approach to the pro game, that should absolutely be part of the administrative side as well.  And, I agree the leak issue was a big one for the NFL to deal with.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

3 minutes ago, stosh64 said:

Did the NFL deem it 'racist'?

 

No, they apparently deemed it irrelevant.

[NewEra]

50 minutes ago, strive_for_five_guy said:

What’s the reason for it being eliminated?

Discrimination

[Big Blitz]

47 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

From taking the Wonderlic samples available online, it struck me as really a kind of “SAT lite”.    Players who were specifically coached for it and academically successful would do well, and players who were not coached for it and not particularly academically successful would not, but it really wouldn’t test the football smarts and football-specific memory teams really care about.  

 

Teams would be better served by having the players watch a film clip while coaches explain what they should key on to know their role and responsibility, have a play or two charted and explained, and then go back and re-watch the film after some questions and ask them to chart the play to see what they recall.

 

The key to me is promising big fines and loss of picks to ####### FO that ask players ridiculous questions like “is your mother a prostitute?” or “what’s your sexual preference, are you gay?” Or .doing bogus stuff like grabbing a players wrist and saying “I’ll be able to tell if you’re lying from your pulse, do you smoke pot?  Oh, you’re lying, I can feel your pulse”. 

 

I think they’ve decided (and took long enough) that Wonderlic really doesn’t have a lot of bearing on a player’s football success, so why do it?

 

 

??

 

 

 

But they absolutely should be able to ask if your teammates went to your 21st birthday party.  

[Gugny]

I've gone through this exercise multiple times over the years, so I'll just summarize what I believe (based on reality) to be true, re: the Wonderlic:

 

This is specific to QUARTERBACKS, beginning with the year 2000.

 

15 is the cutoff.  

 

A QB who scores 15 or lower WILL not have sustained success as an NFL starter.

A QB who scores 16 or higher MAY (not will) have sustained success as an NFL starter.

 

I maintain that this has been a useful tool in weeding out QBs that simply aren't that good.

 

And I know that Lamar Jackson has had lots of regular season success and he had a phenomenal MVP season.  But he has regressed since then and the Ravens have not been a legitimate Super Bowl contender ... which is what all teams want.

 

I know my opinion is controversial, but I've believed in it for years and no one will change my mind.

 

I've done the homework and made the lists in the past.  Not doing it anymore.

 

And before you chime in with "Jim Kelly got a 12," look at the years in scope.  Before you chime in with "Ryan Fitzpatrick scored over 40," look at what a score above 15 says above.

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

45 minutes ago, maddenboy said:

I dont like how Florio states his opinion here as if it were fact.  Stating that the wonderlic is irrelevant.  That's a stupid statement in itself.

 

There's 32 teams and lots of personnel on each team.  How can he possibly know how it is used.  

 

I disagree that it is irrelevant.  But if teams use it wrongly, that's better for the teams that use it correctly.  I think what he NFL is after here, is (1) stopping the scores from leaking and (2) possible liability later, for leaked scores.  Especially if there are statements regarding confidentiality that the nfl makes to the test takers.

 

I mean, Florio is an opinion writer.  What is he supposed to state?

 

Excerpt from article:

Quote

At one point, agents obtained the various versions of the test and gave them to their clients, allowing them to have the best possible preparation for the exam. Scouts shrugged at the perception/reality of cheating. As one scout told PFT years ago, if the players can memorize the multiple versions of the Wonderlic and repeat the answers when called upon to do so, they can memorize a playbook. And that’s all that matters.

 

So basically at that point, what it’s measuring is how aggressive a player’s agent is at cheating and coaching his players to memorize answers.

Yes, if a guy can memorize questions and answers, he can memorize a playbook but then to be some sort of useful comparative metric all agents would have to be equivalently aggressive and all players/agents equivalently willing to cheat.

 

And frankly, I’m not sure rote memorization and recall is going to help an RB recognize what the defense is doing and how that impacts his protection assignment when blocking.

[Process]

1 hour ago, strive_for_five_guy said:

What’s the reason for it being eliminated?

It's 2022 bro 

[BuffaloBill]

11 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

No, they apparently deemed it irrelevant.

 

As an irreverent act directed towards draft nerds. 

[Chicken Boo]

I don't believe the wonderlic matters.  

 

Marino, Kelly, McNabb, Lamar, McNair, etc. either didn't score particularly high or high at all.  Same for the sucky QBs that score high.

 

It's football.  If you're trying to determine if a QB can process things quickly, how about an on-field football related drill?

[Lieutenant Aldo Raine]

53 minutes ago, Nextmanup said:

I was utterly OUTRAGED the moment the announced Josh ALLEN and it wasn't Josh ROSEN

 

That's been painfully obvious for the past few years.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

2 minutes ago, Chicken Boo said:

I don't believe the wonderlic matters.  

 

Marino, Kelly, McNabb, Lamar, McNair, etc. either didn't score particularly high or high at all.  Same for the sucky QBs that score high.

 

It's football.  If you're trying to determine if a QB can process things quickly, how about an on-field football related drill?

 

A lot of teams do just that when interviewing players.  They diagram some plays then watch film with the guy then see what he recognizes/recalls.

Beane has talked about how they try to use their opening questions to get the players to relax and be comfortable so that they get the most accurate read on his abilities vs. measuring how nervous different guys are, and also how they try to work to the level the guy has been working at (ie if the college team wasn’t expecting the player to recognize different personnel sets by numbers they’re like “doesn’t mean you can’t learn” and they start there.)

 

There have been all sorts of studies in the last decade or so about what interview questions are most common and which are most predictive of OTJ performance.  Some employers have embraced these findings and changed their interview tactics, others are still asking “where do you see yourself in 5 years” and the like.

[RoyBatty is alive]

16 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

I mean, Florio is an opinion writer.  What is he supposed to state?

 

Excerpt from article:

 

So basically at that point, what it’s measuring is how aggressive a player’s agent is at cheating and coaching his players to memorize answers.

Yes, if a guy can memorize questions and answers, he can memorize a playbook but then to be some sort of useful comparative metric all agents would have to be equivalently aggressive and all players/agents equivalently willing to cheat.

 

And frankly, I’m not sure rote memorization and recall is going to help an RB recognize what the defense is doing and how that impacts his protection assignment when blocking.

 

It is an indication of how hard a player is willing to work to achieve success.

[Dan Darragh]

Next thing you know Harvard won't require SAT scores any more.

[RoyBatty is alive]

10 minutes ago, Chicken Boo said:

I don't believe the wonderlic matters.  

 

Marino, Kelly, McNabb, Lamar, McNair, etc. either didn't score particularly high or high at all.  Same for the sucky QBs that score high.

 

It's football.  If you're trying to determine if a QB can process things quickly, how about an on-field football related drill?

That was a totally different era when Marino & Kelly took it.  Like comparing records of QB TD/INT ratios from back then versus today,

Just now, Dan Darragh said:

Next thing you know Harvard won't require SAT scores any more.

LOL, they dont require them as of right now for the next 4 years.  

[Long Suffering Fan]

1 hour ago, maddenboy said:

I dont like how Florio states his opinion here as if it were fact.  Stating that the wonderlic is irrelevant.  That's a stupid statement in itself.

 

Florio doesn't like it?  That makes me like it more.

 

As has been said, the wonderlic is pretty easy, especially if you practice for it at all.  If you can't be bothered to practice, maybe you are lazy.  If practice doesn't help you at all, you have issues.  Maybe this doesn't matter on the lines, but it has to matter for QBs.  Lamar, for as good as he is (I actually wanted to draft him that year as we would not have had to move up to get him and I believed the - defeat math itself - narrative on our Josh), is not as good from the pocket as our Josh, despite having all the tools.

 

 

[dpberr]

23 minutes ago, Gugny said:

I've gone through this exercise multiple times over the years, so I'll just summarize what I believe (based on reality) to be true, re: the Wonderlic:

 

This is specific to QUARTERBACKS, beginning with the year 2000.

 

15 is the cutoff.  

 

A QB who scores 15 or lower WILL not have sustained success as an NFL starter.

A QB who scores 16 or higher MAY (not will) have sustained success as an NFL starter.

 

I maintain that this has been a useful tool in weeding out QBs that simply aren't that good.

 

And I know that Lamar Jackson has had lots of regular season success and he had a phenomenal MVP season.  But he has regressed since then and the Ravens have not been a legitimate Super Bowl contender ... which is what all teams want.

 

I know my opinion is controversial, but I've believed in it for years and no one will change my mind.

 

I've done the homework and made the lists in the past.  Not doing it anymore.

 

And before you chime in with "Jim Kelly got a 12," look at the years in scope.  Before you chime in with "Ryan Fitzpatrick scored over 40," look at what a score above 15 says above.

 

Out of curiosity, did you ever run your analysis on any other position?  I'm curious whether it'd apply to say middle linebacker or center.  I'm thinking of positions where you make the line calls and defensive calls.  I tend to assume centers and defensive play callers *would* score highly.  

[Blainorama5]

Somewhere, Fitzpatrick is pissed !!!   🤪

[In Summary]

1 hour ago, maddenboy said:

I dont like how Florio states his opinion here as if it were fact.  Stating that the wonderlic is irrelevant.  That's a stupid statement in itself.

 

There's 32 teams and lots of personnel on each team.  How can he possibly know how it is used.  

 

I disagree that it is irrelevant.  But if teams use it wrongly, that's better for the teams that use it correctly.  I think what he NFL is after here, is (1) stopping the scores from leaking and (2) possible liability later, for leaked scores.  Especially if there are statements regarding confidentiality that the nfl makes to the test takers.

Agree.  You want more information about a player - not less.  The whole combine is about JUDGING a player.  You can dismiss data, but you can't assess it if you don't collect it.  Nothing sacred about the Wonderlic as a test vehicle, but you do want to scale cognitive abilities as you would physical abilities IMO.  Separately, I would think interviews contain questions that can be used to look for psychological traits.  Companies do this.  

[RobbRiddick]

1 hour ago, Virgil said:

Lamar Jackson have a vote in this?

They offered but he ticked the wrong box

[dorquemada]

42 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

 

I don’t think you need an advanced stats degree to conclude that there isn’t a correlation between Wonderlic and football contribution.

 

An advanced degree in stats would help you do an actual multivariate analysis to determine the strength of the correlation between Wonderlic scores and football contribution.   I think somebody has drawn a conclusion here, but i doubt has done the analysis