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NFL player IQ by position

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Re: NFL player IQ by position

#21

Post by mechanical_fish »

byrneseyeview wrote: post #15
demandred wrote: post #5

When asked about the balls he dropped in big spots, he responded, ‘What about the ball I caught?’” So while an exceptionally score on a standardized test might suggest dyslexia, the guy’s an egotistical bonehead even without mitigating factors. And that is why Manningham is in the NFL and OP is the one writing about him. Excuse someone for wanting to focus on their accomplishments and not their failures and for havin…

I don't know enough people in sports to be sure about this, but my guess is that the people who try to fix their mistakes rather than crow about their successes are the ones who improve over time.

There's no contradiction there. You can crow about your successes all you want, so long as you also consistently try to fix your mistakes.

In certain sports, anyway. In other fields -- customer service, for example -- things are different.

Re: NFL player IQ by position

#22

Post by byrneseyeview »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #21
byrneseyeview wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know enough people in sports to be sure about this, but my guess is that the people who try to fix their mistakes rather than crow about their successes are the ones who improve over time.

There's no contradiction there. You can crow about your successes all you want, so long as you also consistently try to fix your mistakes. In certain sports, anyway. In other fields -- customer service, for example -- things are different.

"Doc, the pill you gave me made me vomit uncontrollably all day, and once I recovered I realized that I was still as sick as before."

"Oh yeah? Well what about all the times I told people to get some rest and drink lots of fluids?"

Yes, I can see how this would be a good success strategy.

(I do agree that it's important to recognize when you're doing the right thing, especially in a creative field. But when you're playing a game according to strict rules, on a team, the need to avoid failure is probably greater than the need to avoid success. Especially when you consider that the people who make it to these teams probably emphasized pursuing success over avoiding failure when they were younger, because someone in the 50th percentile in a professional sport might have been in the 99th percentile as an amateur. If nothing else, they should dampen their individuality to reflect the higher average performance of their peers).

Re: NFL player IQ by position

#23

Post by lexlibra »

byrneseyeview wrote: post #16
pg wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, just that size and intelligence are more correlated than speed and intelligence. My guess is that the correlation between size and intelligence is close to zero. So that would imply there's a negative correlation between speed and intelligence. That would be easy to test: just compare the results of the players' IQ tests with their 40 yard dash speeds.

The correlation between size and intelligence is positive, because malnutrition can lower adult IQ and adult size. That correlation is a lot stronger when you control for other variables, of course. And 'speed and intelligence' is not quite the correlation you want -- IQ correlates with mental reaction time, so smarties may be 'faster' for short distances because they get a head start. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He…

So cornerbacks have lower IQs because they are malnourished? That explains the IQ difference in the chart? Right ...

Re: NFL player IQ by position

#24

Post by run4yourlives »

occam wrote: post #17

Hi, Occam here. This is just a map of the white/black ratio of each position. There is a 15 point difference between the mean IQ of European-descended (white) Americans and African-descended (black) Americans Please note this is something You Can't Say so don't speak publicly of it. The most interesting thing to note here is that white players score about half a standard deviation higher than the national white IQ, a…

Your last point main me feel a little better. I was really unimpressed to see that the safety positions were rated so low. In many respects, this is the hardest position on the field to play, because you need to adjust how you play it not only every play, but several times during the play.

Re: NFL player IQ by position

#25

Post by menloparkbum »

byrneseyeview wrote: post #16
pg wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, just that size and intelligence are more correlated than speed and intelligence. My guess is that the correlation between size and intelligence is close to zero. So that would imply there's a negative correlation between speed and intelligence. That would be easy to test: just compare the results of the players' IQ tests with their 40 yard dash speeds.

The correlation between size and intelligence is positive, because malnutrition can lower adult IQ and adult size. That correlation is a lot stronger when you control for other variables, of course. And 'speed and intelligence' is not quite the correlation you want -- IQ correlates with mental reaction time, so smarties may be 'faster' for short distances because they get a head start. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He…

The malnutrition explanation doesn't really work in the NFL. Even the "small" players weigh 220 pounds.

Regarding size, speed and intelligence, even though they are huge, most NFL linemen will have a faster 40 than most math graduate students.

Re: NFL player IQ by position

#26

Post by [deleted] »

run4yourlives wrote: post #24
occam wrote: post #17

Hi, Occam here. This is just a map of the white/black ratio of each position. There is a 15 point difference between the mean IQ of European-descended (white) Americans and African-descended (black) Americans Please note this is something You Can't Say so don't speak publicly of it. The most interesting thing to note here is that white players score about half a standard deviation higher than the national white IQ, a…

Your last point main me feel a little better. I was really unimpressed to see that the safety positions were rated so low. In many respects, this is the hardest position on the field to play, because you need to adjust how you play it not only every play, but several times during the play.

[deleted]

Re: NFL player IQ by position

#27

Post by demandred »

byrneseyeview wrote: post #15
demandred wrote: post #5

When asked about the balls he dropped in big spots, he responded, ‘What about the ball I caught?’” So while an exceptionally score on a standardized test might suggest dyslexia, the guy’s an egotistical bonehead even without mitigating factors. And that is why Manningham is in the NFL and OP is the one writing about him. Excuse someone for wanting to focus on their accomplishments and not their failures and for havin…

I don't know enough people in sports to be sure about this, but my guess is that the people who try to fix their mistakes rather than crow about their successes are the ones who improve over time.

Given that OP ripped a quote out of context, we will continue to use it as such.

If a reporter/interviewer asks you about your failures, and you simply reference your success, does that necessarily mean you do not fix your mistakes?

How do you suggest you 'fix' the mistake of dropping a few balls in a game on the spot? The only answer is, you go out and continue to have big games. This would be akin to an interviewer asking Michael Jordan 'why did you miss 10,000 shots in your game' and he says 'I made XYZ game-winning shots and was NBA Finals MVP.'

If you look at any of the interviews about teammates/opponents of MJ, they all say he was very, very cocky.

Cocky != Refusal to fix mistakes.

Or perhaps, in a better context, an interviewer asking you why some of your stock purchases did not work out favorably, and you stating that you've had a lot of successes despite your failures.

I'm by no means a Michigan fan, but I saw him play a few games last year (on TV) and he was clearly a very, very good football player. Looking at Manningham's stats on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Manningham he seemed to have a pretty good season last year, when I believe the interview took place.

Re: NFL player IQ by position

#28

Post by akd »

lexlibra wrote: post #20
pg wrote: post #6

It may not be anything so complicated as smarter people being closer to the ball. It looks to me as if there is an inverse correlation between IQ and the running speed necessary in a position. So the simplest explanation for this pattern is that running speed and intelligence aren't highly correlated, and you can't simultaneously optimize for both. E.g. you can pick a smart guy to be your center even if he's slow, be…

Here's an explanation for why foot speed and intelligence are inversely correlated: "Upper body strength is relatively equally distributed between the races, but footspeed most definitely is not. So, tailbacks, wide receivers, and defensive players have a need for speed, so they are disproportionately black. I haven't checked recently, but in most recent years since Jason Sehorn's retirement, none of the 64 NFL start…

> For some reason, this never gets as much publicity as the perceived lack of black quarterbacks.

The reason is that quarterback is the most glamorous and well-known position. This explanation doesn't explain why there is a lot of publicity about the underrepresentation of women in science -- "scientist" is definitely not a glamorous profession.

Re: NFL player IQ by position

#29

Post by byrneseyeview »

menloparkbum wrote: post #25
byrneseyeview wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The correlation between size and intelligence is positive, because malnutrition can lower adult IQ and adult size. That correlation is a lot stronger when you control for other variables, of course. And 'speed and intelligence' is not quite the correlation you want -- IQ correlates with mental reaction time, so smarties may be 'faster' for short distances because they get a head start. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He…

The malnutrition explanation doesn't really work in the NFL. Even the "small" players weigh 220 pounds. Regarding size, speed and intelligence, even though they are huge, most NFL linemen will have a faster 40 than most math graduate students.

That's a good point. I somehow didn't consider it before. I guess if they're in the 99.5th percentile of size, very very few of them will have any traits that cause lower height.

I agree that at 40 they will be faster. But for short bursts of speed, or for a run that requires frequent changes of direction (e.g. because you're being chased around) the higher IQ people will have a 'speed' advantage due to mental rather than physical agility.

Re: NFL player IQ by position

#30

Post by akd »

DaniFong wrote: post #4

Interesting. Yet in this study the Wonderlic is keyed to position, not performance in that position. We know that people largely stay within their positions, and we know that metrics like the Wonderlic and the drafting Combine strongly influence both draft decisions, and fielding decisions. We know that such metrics are designed to correspond with existing ideas: in this case, that quarterbacks were smart and tailbac…

> Yet in this study the Wonderlic is keyed to position, not performance in that position.

It's automatically keyed to performance in the position since it's based on NFL players, who are the people at the 99.99th or 99.999th percentile at that position.

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