For years, the NFL has shown that it’s ultimately unable to secure the Scouting Combine results of the Wonderlic test, an outdated, irrelevant intelligence exam to which the league clings because, well, it was like that when I got here.
While PFT has abandoned the practice of tracking down and reporting the numbers for a variety of reasons, it’s impossible to ignore the annual leaking of key scores. Last year, it was Johnny Manziel and other quarterbacks whose Wonderlic scores were leaked to and reported by the NFL itself, through its in-house media conglomerate. This year, the leak landed with Yahoo! Sports.
Regardless, the NFL continues to fail every year the one-question test regarding its ability to secure the results of the Wonderlic test.
For that reason, prospects should simply refuse to take the test. And here’s the script next year’s Scouting Combine attendees should use: “Sorry, sir. I choose not to take the test. You’ve told me that the results are private and confidential, but every year the scores for one or more players are leaked to the media. So the only way to reliably secure my own test result is to not create one.”
It’s a boycott that needs to begin with the top prospects whose draft stock won’t be affected by refusing to take the test. As more and more players join, more and more will feel emboldened to decline the Wonderlic test.
The NFL won’t get rid of the Wonderlic test because the NFL resists change like that 85-year-old guy whose unused microwave is still flashing 12:00 repeatedly. So it’s time for change to be forced on the NFL, by the players who are expected after playing college football for free to freely submit to any and all poking and prodding and scrutiny in the name of a job interview only slightly less invasive than the exploratory aspects of an alien abduction.