It's that time of the year. Wonderlic time!
Matt Stafford's 38 proves that even smart guys like to rifle it into triple coverage from time-to-time.
Jeff George's 10 explains a lot. Watch him throw and you're not sure why he's not in the NFL Hall of Fame. Follow where he's throwing and your confusion clears up quickly.
Vince Young buckled down and rocked a 15 after initially filling out his scantron to make a happy face.
Chris Leak with a 8. Percy Harvin with a 12. Go Gatah!
I actually think the Wonderlic is a bit overdone.
In fact, I'd contend that for most positions in most sports - most of all anything on the baseball field - being too smart is a horrible impediment. Smart people think critically, are prone to uncertainty, overanalyze - this is anathema to the productive athlete. Smart people can rarely cure their mental slumps with a pithy quote or a bj from a stripper. Not that Barking Carnival readers are opposed to either.
I'm pleased that Maryland teammates Kevin Barnes (41 on Wonderlic) and Darius Heyward-Bey (14) were on the same team. I'd like to have eavesdropped on those conversations:
Barnes: Ah, football season and autumn is upon us, boon companion. Feel the air's crisp chill; our breath visible, hanging before us, like words uttered in regret.
Heyward-Bey: Harrumph.
Barnes: T'was Albert Camus proclaimed,"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower." I love his flirtation with dualism there, though he clearly subordinates Autumn to Spring suggesting it is its "second." Was this a gentle rebuke to the the expiring leaf in contrast with the flower's bloom?
Or is he suggesting some sort of congruence - a parallel between flower-leaf/leaf-flower - the beauty indinstinguishable. Life, Death, Art, Philosophy - is it all not the same piece of Kabuki theater?
Hayward-Bey: You see that girl? I gonna hit it....
Barnes: Ha ha! Oh, always the romantic, Darius! You should be called Darius Wayward-Byron!
Hayward-Bey: In da azz.