A quarterback’s job is so much different. It requires the ability to analyze situations and make decisions extremely quickly. I think intelligence is required.

There is more thought to the game…..DEs and LBs in a 3-4, on the other hand, I don’t want them to think I want them to kill the quarterback.

...scored high on Wonderlic, and he had all the tools of a “prototype QB”. He still wasn’t good enough to run a team in the NFL (and he had several opportunities to do so). I just don’t think Wonderlic matters much at all (unless, as primetime noted, it’s somebody who has a lot of other concerns). If the guy can perform, the guy can perform.

I see people who tout Wonderlic kind of like people who tout baseball players based solely on their physical ability. A baseball player may be able to jump 40 inches and bench press a car, but if he can’t make consistent contact with the ball, work a count, or perform any number of crucial baseball skills, it doesn’t really matter how good he looks in the uniform or how well he speaks. Same with NFL players (although obviously the skill sets you’re looking for are different than in baseball players). It doesn’t matter if the guy’s really smart if he can’t make blocks or complete passes or run routes because his footwork sucks or because he’s not a very good athlete or because he can’t maintain his mechanics. There are “skills” and there are “physical talents” and to be a good player in the NFL you need both.

Dustin,

But, if they really had a problem with things like that, they probably wouldn’t be top NFL prospects.

I think you said it. It’s like Bill James mentioned in his 2002 Baseball Abstract when talking about Kirby Puckett. He noted that GMs often fell in love with players who filled out the uniform well, like Glenn Bragg (who had a really chiseled physique), and tended to dislike short, fairly squat players like Kirby Puckett (who was far better than Bragg could ever hope to be). Then he asked if anyone could put together a list of 20 guys who looked like Puckett who didn’t turn out to be pretty good ballplayers (as you could quite easily do with players who looked like Bragg). His point was that there weren’t a lot of players who looked like Puckett that turned out to be busts because they were usually extremely talented to even get to that point because most people weren’t interested in giving them the benefit of the doubt. The same could probably be said of the Wonderlic test with the NFL…Dan Marino (score of 14) may not be an exceptionally bright guy, but he produced in college and was able to compensate for his supposed weakness with everything else that he did (and he carved out a Hall of Fame career in the process).

I don’t give Carl credit for surviving. He owes more to the loyal-to-a-fault personality of Lamar Hunt than he does to any admirable personal traits of his own. He had a nice little run at the beginning of his tenure and he’s been living off that like a camel in the desert for the last 12-13 years.

In fact, I’d argue that getting Joe Montana and Marcus Allen were the last big coups of his tenure because they were pretty savvy trades (even though the Montana deal cost us a pick that turned into Dana Stubblefield) that led to the most successful postseason of his regime. Priest Holmes was obviously a good find, but by that point Peterson was constructing teams that didn’t have a real shot at winning the Super Bowl so I think he just got lucky on somebody that nobody else wanted. Throw enough darts at a dartboard, you’ll probably hit a bullseye eventually.