America at Large/George Kimball: It didn't take long for word to leak out about Vince Young's result on the Wonderlic Personnel Test at the Indianapolis Scouting Combine last week. No sooner had the University of Texas quarterback put down his pencil at the conclusion of the 12-minute mini-IQ test than sniggering representatives of at least four NFL teams confirmed Young had scored a six.
That's six, as in half a dozen, correct answers, out of a possible 50. Since many of the questions were administered in multiple-choice format, it is not a stretch to suggest your pet goldfish might have scored higher on the Wonderlic than Vince did.
In the three days since, the issues have been publicly debated: first, exactly how smart does a man need to be to play professional football? And, second, how effectively can that intelligence be quantitatively measured in a classroom setting? To which we would ask a third: if there is no expectation of confidentiality when it comes to circulating the results, why would anybody agree to take one of these things?
Apart from devotees of the Winter Olympics, the last week in February is a fallow period on the sporting calendar, which is why for the past quarter-century NFL scouts, coaches, and general managers have chosen that time to convene in Indianapolis for their annual meat market. Three hundred and thirty of the nation's top collegiate prospects - those deemed most likely to comprise the early rounds of April's NFL draft class - are invited. They obligingly show up, along with their agents, and spend several days literally jumping through hoops for the personnel people. They are measured and weighed; their vertical leaps and their 40-yard dash times are duly recorded.
The potential draftees are also subjected to at least two non-football tests. One is a psychological examination which purportedly can serve as a predicator for a player's ability to cope with the stressful life of a professional player. Another is the Wonderlic, which, since 1968, has been used to measure intellectual ability.
It may take years or it may, as in Young's case, take minutes, but you can almost take it to the bank that a given player's Wonderlic score will become the stuff of public currency just as surely as his 40-yard-dash time will.
At the conclusion of the collegiate regular season it was considered a given that the top two draft choices in the class of 2006 would be Southern California quarterback Matt Leinart and his equally gifted team-mate, running back Reggie Bush, but that was before USC ran head-on into Texas and Young at January's Rose Bowl.
In the National Championship Game, Young almost singlehandedly carried his underdog team to victory: a magnificent physical specimen who stands 6ft 5ins and weighs 233 lb, the Texas quarterback threw for 267 yards and ran for 200 more, scoring three touchdowns - including the game-winner with just 19 seconds left in the dramatic 41-38 victory.
The morning after the Rose Bowl, it was reckoned Young's performance would make him worth between $40 and $70 million on draft day. Now, having registered the approximate IQ of a grapefruit on his Wonderlic, the question is how much of that performance at the Combine may have cost him. (Some are estimating he could fall from a likely number one overall to somewhere in the middle of the first round.)
Not even its most enthusiastic supporters among league personnel types would claim the Wonderlic is an infallible predictor of NFL success, but they do argue it can provide an accurate snapshot of a player's ability to process information and make decisions accordingly.
The degree of difficulty for Wonderlic questions doesn't exactly qualify them as brain-teasers. A few examples:
1. The ninth month of the year is: a) January.
b) June. c) September. d) October. e) May.
2. When rope is selling at 10 cents a foot, how many feet can you buy for 60 cents?
3. A boy is 17-years-old and his sister is twice as old. When the boy is 23-years-old, what will be the age of his sister?
The average NFL Wonderlic score is said to be 19, although the expectation is that quarterbacks should as a rule score higher.
In the 38 years the league has been administering the test to collegians, only one player has achieved a perfect score of 50. Pat McInally, the former Harvard receiver who became a punter for the Cincinnati Bengals, jokingly refers to his 1975 result as his "intellectual annuity". "I was ostracised," McInally recalled this week. "There were some awkward moments when I boarded the team plane with a hardcover book under my arm."
Two years ago Eli Manning (39), JP Losman (31) and Philip Rivers (30) were the top Wonderlic quarterbacks, all scoring well ahead of Ben Roethlisberger's 25, but it was Roethlisberger who led his Pittsburgh Steelers to victory in Super Bowl XL last month.
Arguably the best quarterback in the game today, Peyton Manning scored a 28 on his Wonderlic. Dan Marino, on the other hand, registered just 14, but managed a Hall of Fame career nonetheless.
The answer, alas, won't come in April, but a few years down the line when we see how Vince Young actually does perform under fire.
As former Denver Post columnist Woodrow Paige pointed out (on ESPN's Cold Pizza) in the wake of Young's absurdly low test score this week, "When he came out of college John Elway's Wonderlic score was 29. When Elway retired he was replaced by Brian Griese, who'd scored a 39. Griese was so smart he fell down the stairs at his house when he tripped over his dog. He was gone in less than three years."
