I was actually checking out Wonderlic scores for QBs yesterday and found absolutely no correlation to anything at all.

interesting that Urban Meyer was able to have great success with a very high wonderlic QB (Alex Smith) and a relatively lower scoring one (Tebow). Damn good coach that man.

Clausen was at average.

the problem with looking at the wonderlic score the way people are is a couple things:

a) wonderlic is just one piece in the process. it is like a broad jump or high jump or a 3 cone drill. it is just a piece in the prospect puzzle

b) many are taking isolated statistics and saying they don’t matter at all and have no merit. Example: one person jumps out of a plane without a parachute and lives (it happens)…One person jumps out with a parachute and dies. now by these isolated outliers, the stats lead you to believe that parachutes are unsafe when it is quite the opposite.

Here are some facts I found out about the wonderlic:

-The average score for a QB is 24

-The average score for QBs who are slated to start in 2010 (or at least mostly guaranteed) is 28.5

-The average score for QBs who were voted into the pro bowl (whether starter or reserve) is 29.5

-The average score for recent super bowl winning QBs is about 30.2

Now what this shows us is a holistic approach at the wonderlic and not picking it apart test by test. What this shows is that in trends, a QB with a higher wonderlic may be more likely to succeed, whereas someone with a lower score is less likely. now this is just one piece of the puzzle that does often matter, but also often does not. You cannot judge a prospect just on this but also in a holistic approach. when you here a guy like bradford has great pocket presence and awareness AND he scores a 36, then it does solidify him a bit. When tebow has questions about reading the defense and scores below average, then it obviously puts more questions into scouts’ heads.

and people like to use dan marino as an example of how it fails, but then ignore the 15 DA got, the 12 Kordell stewart got, the 10 Jeff George got, and the 17 JP losman got.

What the numbers do show is that guys with higher wonderlics more often than not are more successful. that is not a rule though obviously, because nothing in statistics is completely absolute and there are often signficant amounts of outliers. what the numbers do show is contrary to popular belief, the wonderlic has merit.

Last night on Sportscenter…
“Tim Tebow received a 22 on his Wonderlic, which is below the average of QBs. But you know what? He won X games out of X starts at Florida. So moving on….”

Whenever something bad about precious Timmy comes up, there’s a national emergency to add something good about him in case someone realizes he will not do well in the NFL (as a QB, at least).