By Marc Lawrence, PlaybookSports.com — No, the NFL’s often scoffed at Wonderlic Test isn’t totally dead. But it’s close to the end. And with it, it will go down as one of the worst ideas the NFL ever had. And while the Wonderlic isn’t officially dead, the controversial test is pretty much a goner.
The Wonderlic became one of the most notorious, hated and feared of all the pre-draft tests. The NFL stubbornly used the test as a measure of intelligence when it had nothing to really do with football. It was, for the most part, a useless tool.
The combine has long been one of the most humiliating parts of the draft process and some of the questions asked of players have often crossed the line into cruel and disgusting territory. It was often called the Dez Bryant rule because in 2010, the star receiver was asked at the combine if his mother was a prostitute.
It was a mess. In one of the better examples of how inane the test is, it was reported in 2014 that Johnny Manziel had one of the higher scores of the quarterback group.
Manziel’s NFL career lasted two years.