This is just an opinion, based not on science or research, just on the perceptions of a longtime pro football fan.
One would THINK that quarterback is the position that requires the most intelligence, but I’ve seen numerous highly successful pro quarterbacks who (to put it politely) don’t seem very bright at all. Obviously, there are some extremely intelligent quarterbacks, but I think many of the best ones rely on instinct rather than intellect.
Conversely, one would THINK that if there’s any position at which you could get away with being a big, strong, dumb neanderthal, it would be guard or offensive tackle.
Yet, over the years, I’ve found that the offensive line is precisely the place you’re most likely to find highly intelligent pro football players. That’s counterintuitive, but it seems to be true.
I COULD be full of beans here, so I’m soliciting other opinions. Are the smart guys in the NFL evenly distribued at all positions? Or do you see them concentrated at certain spots?
And IF you think I’m right about the offensive linemen being more intelligent than most other guys on the team, any thoughts as to why that should be?
While watching last Saturday’s Ohio State/Michigan game, someone asked what the significance of the players’ numbers was, and I noted that each player was required to wear a number denoting his IQ. So I would conclude that Defensivelinemen are the smartest players.
IIUC, offensive linemen tend to prefer hanging out with their smaller [number of people], exclusive group (five linemen) rather than their larger, less exclusive group (fifty football players). I’ve always regarded this to be one of the biggest hallmarks of intelligence: shying away from a large group to involve oneself in a very much smaller group of extremely similar people. You’ll note the same pattern in the Physics department of your local college, I’m sure; or among the science teachers at your local high school.
Plus, if you think about it, the center really has one of the hardest jobs in football; consider his acceptable margin-of-error, namely zero. A quarterback can throw an incompletion, a kicker can flub a field goal, and a running back can miss the hole every once in a while, but the results are usually disastrous when a center messes up one snap in a game, out of one snap per every single offensive play. If you don’t believe me, get yourself a tape of the Redskins-Bucs playoff game in the 1999 season. My blood still boils.
Yeah, but IIRC the standards on it aren’t very high.
I think you’re assuming that just because that’s something you’ve observed some intelligent people do, that means that it is a sign of intelligence. Cliquishness is a sign of cliquishness, nothing more. Stupiddity is not the root cause of gregariousness.
Matt Birk, the center for the Minnesota Vikings, is a Harvard grad. He is currently on IR. I was also a center in high school so there is yet more anecdotal evidence of the average centers intelligence. Offensive linemen may statisticly be smarter, but the reason that they hang out together is because the are expected to work as a cohesive group together, at times without communicating. A lot of good offensive linemen play by “feel,” they can feel the other players near them and know what they are going to do. That is the reason that an offenive lineman getting hurt makes such a big difference in the whole lines performance. It’s not that the replacement doesn’t know his job, its because he hasn’t got the same level of cohesiveness that the starters do.
Many successful QBs are as dumb as a box of rocks. Ever listen to a Kerry Collins interview? I love the guy, but every interview he does sounds exactly like Brendan Frasier in Bedazzled. (“You want to play good. You try to play good. You hope you play good. I think we played good.”)
I’ve also always noticed in interviews that O-linemen were often the most well-spoken guys. But I think this is the point where someone needs to point out the different kinds of intelligence. O lineman are probably more reflective and analytical by nature; I’m not sure I’d lbe quite so quick “intelligent” per se.
The Wonderlic accounts for some, but not all, but I’d be very wary of putting too much weight on impressions taken from interviews and the like.
Moreover, sometimes sounding dumb is pretty smart. Ellis mentions Kerry Collins; not the brightest penny in the bank, I’ll grant, but given his history with the media, I suggest that he and a lot of other players follow the Crash Twain rule: Better to mouth vague cliches and be thought a fool than speak your mind and become a headline.
Moreover, as a former High School player, I need to also point out that the list above does not include DEs, who generally average in the high 30s.
Offensive linemen may statisticly be smarter, but the reason that they hang out together is because the are expected to work as a cohesive group together, at times without communicating. A lot of good offensive linemen play by “feel,” they can feel the other players near them and know what they are going to do. That is the reason that an offenive lineman getting hurt makes such a big difference in the whole lines performance. It’s not that the replacement doesn’t know his job, its because he hasn’t got the same level of cohesiveness that the starters do.