Tag Archives: Morris Claiborne

Morris will not be entering the Rocket Scientist Draft

Recently Morris Claiborne, All-American corner and projected top five draft pick, made news by bombing (he scored 4 out of 50) the infamous Wonderlic Test.  Attendees of the NFL combine are administered this test to gauge their mental aptitude in certain areas.  Critics have come out against the test, and more specifically releasing the results to the public.  Well today the Wonderlic is put on trial in the Footbawl Blog’s highly influential “court” of “law”.  The ruling handed down today by the jury threatens to shake the very foundation of the NFL combine, or at least make some dude mad in the comments section.  Probably that second option. 

Nate Raby will be prosecuting the case, and Ben Van Iten will be handling the defense.  The honorable judge Creepy Mannequin  will be presiding over the case.

Turns out we don't know any actual judges

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Nate: I’m looking for work, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Shockingly, being a football lawyer in an imaginary courtroom doesn’t pay well. So I’m applying to a bunch of jobs, trying to find something in an office or maybe computer repair. If I get interviewed for the job, and they give me a test much like the Wonderlic, I’m going to be very confused as to what it has to do with the job I’m applying for.

Of course, I’ll get a 50 out of 50 because I’m a fucking genius, but that’s not the issue here.

Ben: *cough* Bullshit.

Nate: The issue here is that the questions on the Wonderlic have no bearing into the job I’m applying to. Most jobs, too. It’s a basic intelligence test, and it measures aptitude on a general level. Think of those two words.

Basic.

General.

It doesn’t deal with the specific demands of certain jobs. It doesn’t adequately measure how I would respond to fixing computers, and it doesn’t adequately measure how a running back is going to see holes. And it CERTAINLY doesn’t measure a cornerback’s reaction time and athleticism.

A low score on the Wonderlic just means he didn’t understand the questions that have nothing to do with football. And he doesn’t have to. All my client, Morris Claiborne, has to do is make sure the opposing player doesn’t get the ball. Does he need to know what time the two trains from New York to Boston meet in order to do that? No. He doesn’t.

Another point my opponent may make is that a low score shows that his decision making may be suspect, and that could lead to bad decisions off of the field. But if you look at two of the biggest off the field issues in the past decade, you’ll see that their scores weren’t as low as Claiborne’s. Michael Vick and Plaxico Burress scored a 20 and 15 respectively, which is below average, but still close to the rest of the pack for football players.

Nate whispers to the jury.

I don’t know if you know this, but football players aren’t the brightest. 

And that’s the point! Who cares how well they score on an IQ test? No matter what they score, people are individuals, and they make mistakes or do well regardless of general intelligence. Don’t you think Sean Payton is a smart guy? Borderline genius, even? Well, he made several mistakes, and now he’s missing the year for it. Wonder what he got on the Wonderlic.

At the end of the day, I want my players to play football well. And when I looked at the scouting combine footage of Claiborne, I – and most scouts – were floored. He’s projected to go Top 5 based on his football talent. That’s what really matters here. Because if you’re a team drafting a top prospect, you want them to help you win. And wins are earned on the field, not in a cramped classroom with a number one pencil. The prosecution rests.

The defense attorney rises from his table and walks over to the jury. Under his suit jacket there is a t-shirt with the word “Dummies” and a line drawn through it.

Ben: First of all your honor, I think we can all agree that Nate’s closing statement should be stricken from the record.  If you agree with me just keep making that weird face.

Nate: *mumbles something about google image search*

Ben: Excellent.  Now as I like to typically do at this point, I’m going to drop an analogy on the court that just might blow everyone’s goddamn mind.  Let’s say a kid was given an SAT test, and he did poorly.  And then let’s say that in response to this, one of the prospective schools he was interested in not only didn’t allow him to attend class there…THEY CUT HIS FUCKING HEAD OFF!

The jury foreman looks stoic in the face of such profanity.  The jury foreman is a scarecrow.

Would you say the test was to blame?  Or would you say…man, those people at Ball State, they really need to tone it down a notch.  You’d probably say the latter.  The point I’m trying to make here is that we are putting the Wonderlic test on trial here today, not people’s interpretation of it.

There is nothing wrong with the test itself, it simply asks questions.  How people digest the results is their own issue.  Get mad at people for assuming that Claiborne is a drooling moron because he did horribly on the test, not the people who thought up the questions.   If you had two players that are evenly matched, let’s say their stats and physical build were very similar, what’s wrong with at least considering something like this for a tiebreaker?  Or maybe you don’t.  Maybe the scores don’t mean a damn thing.  Then you know what the solution is?  As an NFL team, you don’t pay any attention to the results.  But let’s not make the test itself the boogey man because there are idiots that over value the results.

There are still some personnel people in the league that believe in the Wonderlic, and it is their right to use any tool that is at their disposal.  Why wouldn’t you want as much information possible to make a decision of this magnitude?  In many instances these players are being given the opportunity to become the face of a professional sports franchise.  Former Cowboys and Dolphins coach Jimmy Johnson said that 90% of his draft misses were because he took a chance on marginal intelligence, and he supports the test.  I believe he knows more about football than anyone in this room today.

Ben begins to walk back to his desk, giving one final look back at the “jury”.

We should work on understanding the Wonderlic, instead of writing it off simply because it’s the trendy thing to do. The defense rests!

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 The jury may now deliberate in the comments section!