The NFL Combine: Strength, Speed, and Intelligence?
With Super Bowl 50 right around the corner, teams that are already out of the running are looking towards next year’s draft, when the best collegiate football players are up for grabs among NFL teams. When teams are in a position to pick up a top prospect, they have to ensure that the player they are acquiring is worth every penny, since these draft picks are almost always multi-million dollar endeavors. Teams look at endless hours of tape, and scrutinize every step of their potential players at every minute of the NFL Combine.
The NFL Combine measures almost everything imaginable about a potential NFL player. Some of the assessments include 40-yard dash time, vertical jump, broad jump, and physical measurements of a given player. Part of the NFL Combine is the Wonderlic Cognitive Ability Test, which is a controversial intelligence test used to judge aptitude for adapting to certain situations. This test has been in effect since the 1970s to ensure that top prospects are mentally prepared for their position at the professional level. Even though this test is still used as part of the NFL Combine today, many doubt its predictive value of success in the NFL. In 2005, a study by McDonald and Mirabile failed to show any significant correlation between a Quarterback’s score on the test and the player’s salary. Another study, done in 2009 by Lyons, Hoffman, and Michel found that Wonderlic scores failed to positively and significantly predict performance in the NFL at any position. Although the test itself is quite reliable, and is deemed valid as Matthews and Lassiter noted in Psychological Reports, there are many factors that affect this score, and the score itself hasn’t been found to measure any real football knowledge. Players themselves see the test as irrelevant, and anecdotal evidence from certain prospects shows that some only answer a few questions on the test. Other players come from a very low socio-economic status and are more likely to have poor-reading skills, which are essential for scoring even average on this test. Up until recently, the Wonderlic test was unable to account for these factors.
Recently, the NFL has introduced a new test called the Player Assessment Tool (PAT), which is a 60-minute, computer based test that aims to measure more football-specific cognitive skills, rather than a more general measure of intelligence that is provided by the Wonderlic. The PAT is supposed to correct for low socio-economic backgrounds, and level the playing field for those that aren’t as book smart, but have the incredible ability to read a playbook. More specifically, the test measures the potential fit of a prospect in an NFL locker room, and measures for things like punctuality to team meetings, and the probability of putting in maximum effort to improve on their skills. The PAT also attempts to measure how players can best pick up the playbook to learn the plays, either through on field demonstration or visual aids. The PAT is a step in the right direction as it seems to measure more meaningful and relevant skills, but you’ll still see the Wonderlic at the Combine this year.
Although many football analysts and draft gurus deem the Wonderlic as an irrelevant and useless test in the NFL Combine, it is still used as part of a prospect’s assessment. The reasons for this could be the NFL’s overall ignorance to possible improvement and its painstakingly slow pace for making any bureaucratic adjustments, the big business of psychological tests and special interests tied into it, or a deadly combination of the two. Either way, hopefully the NFL will see where they can improve on their assessment of prospects in the NFL combine, and maybe come up with an even better test that can more adequately complement the PAT, and eclipse the antiquated Wonderlic.
