Youboty is impressive

[Shamrock]

Naw, don't bother. I don't think there's one in particular on Ko, it's just the Wonderlick thing in general. It's a bit tiresome (to me at least).

 

Frankly, I don't care if any of The Bills can spell "Mother." It doesn't matter. Not for nothing, but OJ wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Oops, bad analogy there. OJ wasn't the brightest bulb in the socket, but it didn't stop him one whit from dancing through defenses and making his mark on the Pro Football world.

 

I'm just going to roll my hopes up in a neat little package until the season starts and watch the entertainment of the game of Pro Football. I just don't care how many pounds each player weighs, his number, time in the 40 or number of illegitimate children he has, or if he's a pillow biter. I just care about how they can produce on the field of football and if they're entertaining while maintaining some semblence of respectibility. Aw, screw it. They don't even have to be respectible if I've had enough to drink.

690377[/snapback]

 

 

...what's your favourite drink?

[Orton's Arm]

Naw, don't bother. I don't think there's one in particular on Ko, it's just the Wonderlick thing in general. It's a bit tiresome (to me at least).

 

Frankly, I don't care if any of The Bills can spell "Mother." It doesn't matter. Not for nothing, but OJ wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer.

I mostly disagree with this.

- You don't need as much intelligence to play RB as you do to play FS. If your FS isn't bright, and if you're running a complicated defense, it's going to be a problem.

- The Wonderlic is a very poor tool for measuring intelligence. Many of the questions are knowledge-based, which means a) you can study for them, and b) they don't measure intelligence anyway. Many questions are very easy. Many others are designed to be very time-consuming. Because you're given very little time to complete the test, it's unwise to pay attention to the time dump questions. Very seldom do you see questions that are mentally challenging, yet such that a smart person could solve them quickly.

 

To maximize their scores, players are told to scan the test, looking for easy questions. "What's the tenth month of the year?" would be a good example. After answering all the easy questions on the test, they may have time to do a few of the more difficult questions. Shortly before the test ends, it's time to stop working on any more problems, and to guess randomly for each question not yet answered. One's total score is the sum of all correct answers given.

 

Some of the questions on the Wonderlic are designed to burn time, so you can get a low score by making the mistake of trying to answer these questions correctly. Conversely, even a dim bulb can get a respectable score by following the instructions in the above paragraph. That said, if a player gets a low score when he first takes the test--as Losman did--it would send up a red flag. At that point, you'd want to take a closer look at the player's intelligence.

[sfladave]

That said, if a player gets a low score when he first takes the test--as Losman did--it would send up a red flag.  At that point, you'd want to take a closer look at the player's intelligence.

690534[/snapback]

At least JPs first score, although low, was higher than Marino's and Holcomb's.

 

I do agree that the wonderlic is a poor test to gage the abilities of a football player. They need to develop the footballic test. One that determines a players football smarts.

[Pyrite Gal]

I mostly disagree with this.

- You don't need as much intelligence to play RB as you do to play FS.  If your FS isn't bright, and if you're running a complicated defense, it's going to be a problem.

- The Wonderlic is a very poor tool for measuring intelligence.  Many of the questions are knowledge-based, which means a) you can study for them, and b) they don't measure intelligence anyway.  Many questions are very easy.  Many others are designed to be very time-consuming.  Because you're given very little time to complete the test, it's unwise to pay attention to the time dump questions.  Very seldom do you see questions that are mentally challenging, yet such that a smart person could solve them quickly.

 

To maximize their scores, players are told to scan the test, looking for easy questions.  "What's the tenth month of the year?" would be a good example.  After answering all the easy questions on the test, they may have time to do a few of the more difficult questions.  Shortly before the test ends, it's time to stop working on any more problems, and to guess randomly for each question not yet answered.  One's total score is the sum of all correct answers given. 

 

Some of the questions on the Wonderlic are designed to burn time, so you can get a low score by making the mistake of trying to answer these questions correctly.  Conversely, even a dim bulb can get a respectable score by following the instructions in the above paragraph.  That said, if a player gets a low score when he first takes the test--as Losman did--it would send up a red flag.  At that point, you'd want to take a closer look at the player's intelligence.

690534[/snapback]

 

I once heard a story when I went to college about Neil Rudenstine who was the prvost at 1 Ivy League school and the Prez of another after an Ivy league education. Like many folks in the days of the draft and a different time he entered military service rather than immediately going to Wall St. to collect his winnings.

 

In the Army they gave him their basic English proficiency test and the scores came back and said he was a moron.

 

It turns out that for the simple English language portion he could think of exceptions in the language for every general rule they gave him and he thinking that a knowledgable test maker was trying to fool him so he screwed up the results.

 

My guess is that somebody on the line saved him from endangering his life with a crescent wrench.

 

Even if the story is apocryphal it shows a true point that for a given individual a test is at best an indicator and actually can be a completely false tell as the level of intelligence of the test taker.

[Formerly Allan in MD]

Terry Bradshaw would likely have scored a minus on the 'lick. So I guess what he accomplished as a player was a mistake.

[Dibs]

- The Wonderlic is a very poor tool for measuring intelligence.  Many of the questions are knowledge-based, which means a) you can study for them, and b) they don't measure intelligence anyway.....

690534[/snapback]

 

I was under the impression that the Wonderlic mainly tested for quick thinking unlike the I.Q. test which is much broader in basis. Theory being that quick thinking is what is really needed on the football field.

I've never seen an example of the test so I'm only repeating what was said pre-draft re:V.Young.

You sound like you have more knowledge than me in this....do you think there is any validity to this view?

[socalfan]

............... OJ wasn't the brightest bulb in the socket, but it didn't stop him one whit from dancing through defenses and making his mark on the Pro Football world. .............

690377[/snapback]

 

 

You may be wrong on this. In an interview recently, Joe Ferguson said that he thought OJ was pretty smart. Joe said that OJ new each of the blocking schemes for the running plays, and that that knowledge helped him perform better as a running back. Joe also said many of the running backs don't know even one play's blocking scheme. When I read that, I immediately thought of Willis.

[Nanker]

You may be wrong on this.  In an interview recently, Joe Ferguson said that he thought OJ was pretty smart.  Joe said that OJ new each of the blocking schemes for the running plays, and that that knowledge helped him perform better as a running back.  Joe also said many of the running backs don't know even one play's blocking scheme.  When I read that, I immediately thought of Willis.

690559[/snapback]

 

Joe was being politically correct. OJ was not bright, is not bright, and will never be bright. (period)

 

What he was gifted with - in addition to World Class speed (I'll go no further) was incredible peripheral vision. He could see virtually everywhere with a field of vision of about a 270 degrees - and he was fast AND quick enough to get his 220 lbs. to a place where the other 11 guys weren't. I've heard that about Peyton, Sayers and Dorsett too - the field of vision thing. It places the guy at a tremendous advantge - when he also has the other abilities - to improvise. And each of those guys did a lot of improv after the play was blown up and when a lesser back would be shut down and hauled in by a trailing backer/end/safety.

 

To me the Wonderlic is an anachronistic relic of a day-gone-bye. Perhaps it was a legitimate gauge of intellectual prowess in the 60's and 70's - maybe even into the 80's. But in this day and age - when graduating from college is devalued so much by the of drafting of "eligible" underclassmen - I suspect today's "Scholar-Athletes" are prepping more for their next Saturday afternoon's performance and post-game partying than they are for their next English 404, Chemistry 761 and Micro Biology 685 exams.

 

That's not how it once was. It used to be a well-worn cliche to talk about the "dumb athlete" so the Wonderlic truly could show the difference between athletes with at least average intelligence that went to school to get educated and those who were remedially challenged.

 

But in today's politically correct atmosphere - with such a high percentage of "Scholar-Athletes" being Afro-American, to call one a "dumb athlete" is a perjorative akin to using the "N" word. Everyone goes out of their way to say how "smart" and "intelligent" certain players are, and if their ancestry is from northern Europe, their "athleticism" is praised - even if they're dumber than an engine block.

 

Bottom line - I think a greater number of kids with Pro level abilities that are going to college are disinterested in doing the traditional academic thing. They see it as a stop in the minor leagues on the way to the big bling payoff. So, why study for a Wonderlic thing when I haven't cracked a book in the 2 1/2 years I've been here? Whut's sup wiff dat?

 

That's not to say they aren't "intelligent" for God's sake. In fact it shows a high degree of intelligence to find the quickest path through the maze. It just puts the crow jewels of sports-centrist-academia (such as the, Ahem-ahem! Wonderlic) on the dusty shelf of unread history books and arcane memorabilia.

 

JMHO. Disagree if you will. We live in a different age and the proponents of and adherents to the Wonderlic will puzzle for years over the meaning of the tealeaves in the bottom of their Combine Day teacups. I'd rather watch the men play the game than worry about which books somebody did or didn't read in whle in Kallege.

[Sen. John Blutarsky]

If agents (of all people) can get players to get good Wonderlic scores simply by practicing it, how good of a judge of intelligence could it possibly be?

690518[/snapback]

You learn who's stupid enough to take it without practicing first. Or the people who tell their agent they're studying when they aren't. If it's THAT easy to prep for should EVERYONE score in the 30's?

[socalfan]

Joe was being politically correct. OJ was not bright, is not bright, and will never be bright. (period)

 

What he was gifted with - in addition to World Class speed (I'll go no further) was incredible peripheral vision. He could see virtually everywhere with a field of vision of about a 270 degrees - and he was fast AND quick enough to get his 220 lbs. to a place where the other 11 guys weren't. I've heard that about Peyton, Sayers and Dorsett too - the field of vision thing. It places the guy at a tremendous advantge - when he also has the other abilities - to improvise. And each of those guys did a lot of improv after the play was blown up and when a lesser back would be shut down and hauled in by a trailing backer/end/safety.

 

To me the Wonderlic is an anachronistic relic of a day-gone-bye. Perhaps it was a legitimate gauge of intellectual prowess in the 60's and 70's - maybe even into the 80's. But in this day and age - when graduating from college is devalued so much by the of drafting of "eligible" underclassmen - I suspect today's "Scholar-Athletes" are prepping more for their next Saturday afternoon's performance and post-game partying than they are for their next English 404, Chemistry 761 and Micro Biology 685 exams.

 

That's not how it once was. It used to be a well-worn cliche to talk about the "dumb athlete" so the Wonderlic truly could show the difference between athletes with at least average intelligence that went to school to get educated and those who were remedially challenged.

 

But in today's politically correct atmosphere - with such a high percentage of "Scholar-Athletes" being Afro-American, to call one a "dumb athlete" is a perjorative akin to using the "N" word. Everyone goes out of their way to say how "smart" and "intelligent" certain players are, and if their ancestry is from northern Europe, their "athleticism" is praised - even if they're dumber than an engine block.

 

Bottom line - I think a greater number of kids with Pro level abilities that are going to college are disinterested in doing the traditional academic thing. They see it as a stop in the minor leagues on the way to the big bling payoff. So, why study for a Wonderlic thing when I haven't cracked a book in the 2 1/2 years I've been here? Whut's sup wiff dat?

 

That's not to say they aren't "intelligent" for God's sake. In fact it shows a high degree of intelligence to find the quickest path through the maze. It just puts the crow jewels of sports-centrist-academia (such as the, Ahem-ahem! Wonderlic) on the dusty shelf of unread history books and arcane memorabilia.

 

JMHO. Disagree if you will. We live in a different age and the proponents of and adherents to the Wonderlic will puzzle for years over the meaning of the tealeaves in the bottom of their Combine Day teacups. I'd rather watch the men play the game than worry about which books somebody did or didn't read in whle in Kallege. 

690630[/snapback]

 

You seem to take two sides on the matter.

 

My feeling is that the Wonderlic indicates how well you are educated, as do the SAT, GMAT, ACT, etc. The better educated you are the better you do on the tests. Since preparation for the Wonderlic, SAT, ACT, etc, can impact the score I think that supports my contention that the tests measure education. Being trainable/intelligent and being trained/educated are not the same thing.

 

Trained - you put in the time and energy to learn something and learned it. This to me is what an educated person is.

 

Trainable - if you applied yourself then you would have learned something. This on the other hand is a person that has the intelligence to be educated. Not necessarily the desire for it, but the ability for it.

 

When a person does well on the tests, then I think of them as being educated. If they score low, I'm left with one of two options, either they are not trainable or they are not trained.

 

If a student athelete is not trainable or not trained, I really wonder about the university he attended. It makes me think maybe they should invent a degree in sport. Hell if they have degrees in Black Studies, Hispanic Studies, Asian Studies, Feminist Studies, and General Studies...maybe it is time for Sports Studies.

 

Back to OJ. He educated himself on the line blocking schemes in order to improve his performance. This shows his intelligence and education. He was trainable and trained. He saw the benefit of learning this material and went out and learned it.

 

Next, Peripheral vision... Unless a person's head is oddly shaped, they do not have 270 degree peripheral vision. Everyone that I have ever seen has a flat face with their eyes facing forward and their noise between them. Since peripheral vision is measured while a person is told to look straight ahead, it is not possible for them to see behind them, and 270 degrees of peripheral vision would imply they could see 45 degrees behind them on each side of their head.

 

Maybe Walter Payton, Sayers and Dorsett also understood the advantage of learning the line blocking schemes.

[Buffalo_Stampede]

i read a while back that jp scored a 31 on the wonderlic. can't remember the exact source but maybe you can google it. i also remember reading that 31 is the average score of chemical engineers. so i guess it's a pretty decent score.

690516[/snapback]

 

JP got a 14 the 1st time, his excuse was he had to use the bathroom.

 

He took it a 2nd time and got a 31, after getting a wonderlic coach.

[Pyrite Gal]

Joe was being politically correct. OJ was not bright, is not bright, and will never be bright. (period)

 

What he was gifted with - in addition to World Class speed (I'll go no further) was incredible peripheral vision. He could see virtually everywhere with a field of vision of about a 270 degrees - and he was fast AND quick enough to get his 220 lbs. to a place where the other 11 guys weren't. I've heard that about Peyton, Sayers and Dorsett too - the field of vision thing. It places the guy at a tremendous advantge - when he also has the other abilities - to improvise. And each of those guys did a lot of improv after the play was blown up and when a lesser back would be shut down and hauled in by a trailing backer/end/safety.

 

To me the Wonderlic is an anachronistic relic of a day-gone-bye. Perhaps it was a legitimate gauge of intellectual prowess in the 60's and 70's - maybe even into the 80's. But in this day and age - when graduating from college is devalued so much by the of drafting of "eligible" underclassmen - I suspect today's "Scholar-Athletes" are prepping more for their next Saturday afternoon's performance and post-game partying than they are for their next English 404, Chemistry 761 and Micro Biology 685 exams.

 

That's not how it once was. It used to be a well-worn cliche to talk about the "dumb athlete" so the Wonderlic truly could show the difference between athletes with at least average intelligence that went to school to get educated and those who were remedially challenged.

 

But in today's politically correct atmosphere - with such a high percentage of "Scholar-Athletes" being Afro-American, to call one a "dumb athlete" is a perjorative akin to using the "N" word. Everyone goes out of their way to say how "smart" and "intelligent" certain players are, and if their ancestry is from northern Europe, their "athleticism" is praised - even if they're dumber than an engine block.

 

Bottom line - I think a greater number of kids with Pro level abilities that are going to college are disinterested in doing the traditional academic thing. They see it as a stop in the minor leagues on the way to the big bling payoff. So, why study for a Wonderlic thing when I haven't cracked a book in the 2 1/2 years I've been here? Whut's sup wiff dat?

 

That's not to say they aren't "intelligent" for God's sake. In fact it shows a high degree of intelligence to find the quickest path through the maze. It just puts the crow jewels of sports-centrist-academia (such as the, Ahem-ahem! Wonderlic) on the dusty shelf of unread history books and arcane memorabilia.

 

JMHO. Disagree if you will. We live in a different age and the proponents of and adherents to the Wonderlic will puzzle for years over the meaning of the tealeaves in the bottom of their Combine Day teacups. I'd rather watch the men play the game than worry about which books somebody did or didn't read in whle in Kallege. 

690630[/snapback]

 

This view seems too doctrinaire to be intelligently applied to any individual.

 

In fact when any general concept is applied to making judgments about any individual before you really meet him/her or apply the lessons learned from "test" (the ones we all use to test assumptions or written formal tests) the you are pre-judging them (hence the word) and this is neither an intelligent way to operate (we all know what happens when one applies assumptions too much or inappropriately) nor a fair way to operate regarding other people/

 

"Political correctness" is today's popular buzz phrase. In general people seem to use it as a synonym for modern liberal politics (which is of course quite different from classic liberalism).

 

Can a person of conservative ideology be politically correct? It would seem so if political correctness has actual meaning beyond being just another derogatory way of referring to folks on the ideological left.

 

In the old days folks thought it was correct not be coarse in the public commons. Perhaps political correctness is just taking what was formally seen as a courtesy (you said a gal looked great even if you thought it was the most horrible dress you had ever seen) amd extending that to supposed poliical divisions in society. However, there seems to be a lot of money to be made in society by being coarse whether you are Al Franken or Rush Limbaugh.

 

My sense is that society has been cheapened and lessened by paragons of both the left and the right rising to prominence in society. I guess pro football as part of society is not immune to this. I also guess that if political correctness has a root cause it is the dichotomy which existed in a society that uphelf fair play in all things and judging an individual by his own character and abilities rather than judging an individual based on some doctrinaire assumption which may not be true for an individual.

 

The NFL was long a part of these unfair judments of individuals as for examples, regardless of their skills as an athlete or individual leadership qualities they A-As were barred from the role of being an NFL QB. It would seem no wonder that some would demand a form of altered speech often called political correctness to try to defend themselves from the slights (both serious and minor) from society.

 

In the end, it would seem the right thing here is to simply judge individuals as individuals to the extent we can. Application of doctrinaire views may be a workable shorthand that folks have come to rely on the current over-information age, but it seems to be a lousy way to run a railroad or a major spotrt,

[jarthur31]

From this week's tip sheet on ESPN.com

Buffalo coaches were impressed last weekend with the ability of cornerback Ashton Youboty of Ohio State, the team's third-round choice and an apparent steal in that stanza, to assimilate the coverage calls quickly at mini-camp …

--- guess even though the Bills draft room was drunk and disorderly that our blind squirrel front office found an acorn in Youboty.

 

690332[/snapback]

 

This still doesn't make up for the reach at 8.

 

Regards,

 

"Value" Bills fan

[Orton's Arm]

I was under the impression that the Wonderlic mainly tested for quick thinking unlike the I.Q. test which is much broader in basis.  Theory being that quick thinking is what is really needed on the football field.

I've never seen an example of the test so I'm only repeating what was said pre-draft re:V.Young. 

You sound like you have more knowledge than me in this....do you think there is any validity to this view?

I think there's very little validity to the view the Wonderlic tests for quick thinking--or indeed any kind of thinking. Dan Marino was a quick thinker, but his Wonderlic score was quite low. Had Marino taken an intelligence test, my guess is he would have looked a lot smarter than he did after taking that Wonderlic. The intelligence test on Tickle is a pretty good example of what an aptitude test should be like.

 

You can compare sample Wonderlic questions with those of an actual aptitude test. You can see for yourself very few of the Wonderlic questions are A) hard enough to be challenging to a person of reasonable intelligence, B) intelligence-based, not knowledge-based, and C) not intended to be time pits.

[Dibs]

I think there's very little validity to the view the Wonderlic tests for quick thinking--or indeed any kind of thinking.  Dan Marino was a quick thinker, but his Wonderlic score was quite low.  Had Marino taken an intelligence test, my guess is he would have looked a lot smarter than he did after taking that Wonderlic.  The intelligence test on Tickle is a pretty good example of what an aptitude test should be like. 

 

You can compare sample Wonderlic questions with those of an actual aptitude test.  You can see for yourself very few of the Wonderlic questions are A) hard enough to be challenging to a person of reasonable intelligence, B) intelligence-based, not knowledge-based, and C) not intended to be time pits.

690937[/snapback]

 

Thanks for that.

I find it hard to fathom (assuming those example WL Qs were good examples) that anyone could score overly low. Mind you, pressure test situations can cause a bit of brain freezing in some.

[SnakeOiler]

What did JP Losman get on his Wonderlic the first time? Note that most scouts disregard the second tries b/c of how much the agents practice them up for the thing as per Peter King  of SI.

690391[/snapback]

 

Why wouldn't they be practicing for the 1st time? That doesn't make much sense. All they do for months after college season is train for the combine.

[Arkady Renko]

Why wouldn't they be practicing for the 1st time?  That doesn't make much sense.  All they do for months after college season is train for the combine.

691371[/snapback]

 

Read the rest of the thread.