Typically, Wonderlic scores are leaked early to serve as an embarrassment to players who completely bombed the exam. For Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy, this is not the case.
According to Yahoo.com, McElroy scored 48 out of the 50 possible points on the test given as a pre-draft assessment to players at the NFL combine. A score of 20 is said to represent average intelligence.
McElroy’s score is twice the average score for NFL quarterbacks. He is tied for the highest score by an NFL quarterback with Buffalo Bills starter Ryan Fitzpatrick, a graduate of Harvard.
McElroy is well known for his intelligence both on and off the field and was a finalist for a Rhodes scholarship last year.
Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio claims that scoring too high on the Wonderlic might prove to be a disadvantage, especially for quarterbacks.
"Scoring too high can be as much of a problem as scoring too low," Florio wrote. "Football coaches want to command the locker room. Being smarter than the individual players makes that easier. Having a guy in the locker room who may be smarter than every member of the coaching staff can be viewed as a problem — or at a minimum as a threat to the egos of the men who hope to be able when necessary to outsmart the players, especially when trying in some way to manipulate them.”
Florio added that it would have been advantageous if McElroy purposely answered some questions incorrectly.
