Young scores 6 on Wonderlic test
Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 11:29 am
Thompson says report was 'a lie'
By BOB McGINN and TOM SILVERSTEIN
bmcginn@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Feb. 26, 2006
Indianapolis - Texas quarterback Vince Young became the talk of the National Football Scouting combine over the weekend but for all the wrong reasons.
Word spread like wildfire when Young scored a 6 on the Wonderlic intelligence test, the 12-minute, 50-question quiz that National Football League teams have been giving almost all their players for more than 25 years.
A score of 6 is low for any player (the NFL average is 19) but especially so for a quarterback. In fact, a personnel director with more than 30 years in the business could remember only one starting quarterback, Vince Evans of the Chicago Bears, with a score in the single digits. Evans scored an 8 in the late 1970s.
Young took the test with 24 other quarterbacks on Friday, his second day at the combine. The next day, both the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and The Tennessean in Nashville were among newspapers reporting that he scored 6
"I've heard it circulating around," Baltimore Ravens offensive assistant Jim Fassel said Saturday. "If it's true, you look at other things. Maybe he just had a bad day. Maybe you give it to him again. There are other avenues to take."
Two NFL general managers, Ted Thompson of Green Bay and Charley Casserly of Houston, sought to discredit the reports. Citing what he called a "very good source," Casserly said the report was inaccurate.
Said Thompson: "I was told by someone that knows that it was categorically a lie and they were going to make some sort of public statement. There's people that are going to get in trouble about spreading things like that."
National Football Scouting, a syndicate that counts 17 NFL teams as members, organizes the combine and administers the Wonderlic test. NFS places all results from the combine, including the Wonderlic scores, and forwards them within a day or two to all teams after the combine concludes Tuesday.
Most players are given the Wonderlic for the first time by a combine scout in the spring before their senior season. As a junior, Young was taking the test for the first time in Indianapolis.
Many players with established agents are given sample copies of the Wonderlic and drilled over and over in the months leading up to the combine. However, Young's agent, Major Adams, is virtually unknown and might not have prepped his client.
In the last six seasons, the only solid quarterback prospects with extremely low Wonderlic scores were Seneca Wallace (10), who was drafted by Seattle in the fourth round in 2003, and Tee Martin (11), who went to Pittsburgh in the fifth round in '00.
In 1999, Donovan McNabb scored 12, Akili Smith scored 15 and Daunte Culpepper scored both a 15 and a 21. The year before, Charlie Batch had a 12 and a 15 and Aaron Brooks scored 17.
Southern California's Matt Leinart scored 35 on Friday, according to sources. The other top quarterback in the upcoming draft, Vanderbilt's Jay Cutler, had 26 in April. Almost all of the quarterbacks taken in the first round in the last decade scored 20 or more. The average score by 26 quarterbacks who took the test last spring was 23.35.
Young was raised in Houston primarily by his mother and grandmother. One personnel man with knowledge of Young said it would have been completely out of character for him not to have tried on the test.
"It shocks the heck out of me," the scout said. "I know Greg Davis, the offensive coordinator at Texas. They have a very sophisticated system. You see the great decisions he makes. It seems to me that Greg Davis couldn't have played with a guy like this."
It should be remembered that Brett Favre scored a 22 in February 1991. One longtime scout said Terry Bradshaw, Jim Kelly and Dan Marino all scored 15. Don Majkowski had 21 in '87.
When players score poorly, many teams retest them using problems involving shapes rather than words. One of those exercises, called the "matrices" test, is said to give clubs another indicator of learning ability without testing the ability to read.
"You have to be very, very careful on whatever you draw from the combine — the 40, the interview, the Wonderlic — and not give it more value than it deserves," Ravens coach Brian Billick said. "The guy's had an incredible career, he's been incredibly productive and he's a tremendous athlete."
Young was projected going to Tennessee with the No. 3 pick. If his test score holds up as valid, it's possible he might be available to Green Bay at No. 5.
Badgers work: Two wide receivers from Wisconsin, Brandon Williams and Jonathan Orr, clocked almost identical times in the 40-yard dash on Sunday.
Orr, 6 feet 261/87 inches and 198 pounds, was timed in 4.49 seconds. Williams, 5-963 /87 and 179, was timed in 4.50.
Last March, Orr ran 4.31 and 4.37 on the Badgers' indoor turf field. Williams has run 4.50 in the past.
Florida's Chad Jackson had the fastest 40 time among the 24 wide receivers in the Badgers' group, with a 4.32
Face to face: Thompson said the Packers intended to use all 60 available interviews each club is allotted with players at the combine.
The Packers have interviewed or are scheduled to interview most of the top players in the draft. They have already interviewed Southern California's Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart and Texas' Vince Young and have interviews scheduled with North Carolina State end Mario Williams and Ohio State linebacker A.J. Hawk, among others.
"If I was at the Senior Bowl and we spent a lot of time with them there, or the East-West game, we won't necessarily put them on the list of 60," Thompson said. "We had to send (the list) in six weeks ago. Sometimes we like those players a lot more and sometimes we like them a lot less. We typically make sure we talk to the juniors because we know less about them."
Market development: Kicker Ryan Longwell, who is no closer to reaching a contract agreement with the Packers before the start of free agency Friday, received good news about the upcoming market.
An NFL source said San Francisco kicker Joe Nedney had agreed to a contract worth about $1.4 million per year, thus taking him off the market. Longwell is in competition with other kickers such as New England's Adam Vinatieri and Indianapolis' Mike Vanderjagt for free-agency dollars and the signing of Nedney means he will have a better shot of getting an offer.
On Saturday, Indianapolis general manager Bill Polian said the Colts didn't expect to re-sign Vanderjagt and were definitely in the market for a new kicker. "In our minds we are looking," he said. "Mike will be free and he'll probably have to go somewhere else. We have plans along those lines. We figure it will be an area that we have to (address)."
Exactly who else will be seeking a kicker is unknown. But it's likely Longwell will receive interest around the NFL; the question is whether he'll be able to top the $1.5 million per year he was making with the Packers during the five years of his contract.
Man in charge: Thompson is doing more than just scouting players at the combine.
Each night he meets with various combine officials and NFL coaches to determine the structure of the drills that the players will take part in. Thompson said his job was to design drills that both allow scouts and coaches to best evaluate the skills of the participants and also provide the least amount of injury risk to the players.
As a personnel director, Thompson had more time to handle the duties of drill organizer, but since becoming Packers general manager last year he has found it time-consuming and plans to hand it off to someone else as soon as possible.
"I have to find someone else who will do it," Thompson said.
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play book for dummies ](./images/smilies/eusa_wall.gif "Brick wall")
(*exit all credibility*....*enter obvious bias**)
