Wonderlic Update after 9 Weeks

You may recall this post, where I stacked up the one half of the NFL teams with the highest Wonderlic scores against the other half with the lowest. The first question I asked was for you to guess which group had the higher scores and which had the lower:

Group A

Detroit Lions
Denver Broncos
Miami Dolphins
Pittsburgh Steelers
Atlanta Falcons
Indianapolis Colts
New York Giants
Philadelphia Eagles
Houston Texans
New Orleans Saints
Jacksonville Jaguars
Cincinnati Bengals
Washington Redskins
Kansas City Chiefs
Arizona Cardinals
Green Bay Packers

Group B

St. Louis Rams
Oakland Raiders
Tennessee Titans
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
San Diego Chargers
Dallas Cowboys
Chicago Bears
Carolina Panthers
San Francisco 49ers
New York Jets
Cleveland Browns
New England Patriots
Buffalo Bills
Baltimore Ravens
Minnesota Vikings
Seattle Seahawks.

Okay, it's the latter (if you put the list of Group A beneath the list of Group B, you'll have the entire order of finish -- St. Louis did the best, while Green Bay did the worst). Now, let's look at the combined records to date (at the midway point of the season) for both groups:

Group A: 60-70
Group B: 70-60.

Surprise, Surprise. Sometimes in football, doing means more than thinking. In case you were wondering, St. Louis, which tested the highest, is 4-4, second-highest Oakland is 3-5, while Tennessee, which tested third-highest, is 2-7. Green Bay, which tested the worst, is 1-7, while Arizona, second-to-last, is 2-6. Third-to-last Kansas City is 5-3, fourth-to-last (on Wonderlic, is case you were Wonderlic-ing) Washington is 5-3, and fifth-to-last Cincinnati is 7-2.

Go figure. By the way, Indianapolis, which is 8-0, finished 22nd on the Wonderlic, which just goes to show you a) the standings matter more and b) it perhaps is more important how your front-office folks and quarterbacks do on the test than the rest of the guys on the field.

Finally, let's examine how they did in head-to-head matchups, where a Group A team played a Group B team. Again, Group B prevails, 41-31, which means that the teams with the lower Wonderlic scores prevailed again.

I am sure the Wonderlic folks can come up with reasons as to how I am misapplying their data, but on the face of it, at least this year, as to overall team performance, the Wonderlic test doesn't seem to make a difference.

As with many things, what you do with your talent and how hard you work is critical to your own and your team's success.