

NFL player IQ by position - mhb
http://benfry.com/writing/archives/147

======
pg
It may not be anything so complicated as smarter people being closer to the
ball. It looks to me as if there is an inverse correlation between IQ and the
running speed necessary in a position. So the simplest explanation for this
pattern is that running speed and intelligence aren't highly correlated, and
you can't simultaneously optimize for both.

E.g. you can pick a smart guy to be your center even if he's slow, because he
doesn't have to run much. Whereas in a wide receiver or a running back you
just want the fastest guy you can find.

~~~
lexlibra
Here's an explanation for why foot speed and intelligence are inversely
correlated:

"Upper body strength is relatively equally distributed between the races, but
footspeed most definitely is not. So, tailbacks, wide receivers, and defensive
players have a need for speed, so they are disproportionately black. I haven't
checked recently, but in most recent years since Jason Sehorn's retirement,
none of the 64 NFL starting cornerbacks at the start of the season were white,
and none of the 32 starting tailbacks were white. (For some reason, this never
gets as much publicity as the perceived lack of black quarterbacks.)"

"As we all know, there is about a 15 point difference IQ gap between whites
and blacks, so positions that are black dominated tend to have lower average
IQs than positions that are more integrated (or that are white monopolized,
such as placekicker and punter)."

( read the whole thing [http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/07/graphical-data-
analyst-be...](http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/07/graphical-data-analyst-ben-
fry-takes.html) )

This seems like a much more plausible explanation of the facts than the
"closer to the ball" theory. Are we really that scared of "things you can't
say" not to point out something that is obvious to anybody who watches
football?

~~~
quews
As a long time (silent) reader of Hacker News posts and comments, this comment
easily ranks as one of the most offensive, and perhaps the most disturbing.

The notion that race fundamentally has anything to do with intelligence should
offend any sane, rational, science-minded person who is even just scarcely
familiar with the history of the pseudo-science of eugenics and the countless
studies debunking it many claims.

However, more offensive than that, I find the fact that this comment is still
here and in fact, up-modded, as offensive to the very core…

What the comment says implicitly is that “Blacks are dumber than Whites -
DUH.” If he had simply typed this, perhaps the comment would have been removed
or at the very least down-modded to oblivion so that my reading it would have
been my own damned fault.

But what is astonishing (and inexplicable, considering the great number of
comments I have read on this forum, lauding and praising the seemingly high
intellect of the people who frequent this forum) is that because the poster
had the guile to conceal his ignorant comment with more words, not only was
this comment given credibility, but many had the sheer audacity to up-mod this
nonsense. This is sobering…

But what really woke me up, was realizing that the utterly ignorant comment
was in response to PG – who is by all accounts the de-facto host/role-model
here. I figured I would scroll down a short distance and see the straight-
forward, no nonsense rebuttal I have seen him give to comments much less
deserving of a dressing down – no such luck.

I shuddered. To think that this is the same man who writes all those essays
wherein the common thread is a brutal application of logic – why the silence
here, when given what amounts to a perfect lead-in?

Why not quickly question if it is even possible to test for intelligence? Why
not describe what such a test might look like if it is indeed possible? Why
not suggest that a time delineated test full of arithmetic might be the worst
candidate for such a test (as it implies that computers would then be said to
have such intelligence in spades)? Why not question the deep-sinking
stereotypical association with speed-in-calculation ability with intellect?
Why not?

Let me not speculate as to why not. Let me just say to all who know better,
but said and will continue to say nothing – SHAME.

~~~
pg
If there's one thing more poisonous than racism it's publicly equating the
failure to denounce x with believing x. That is a classic tool of demagogues.
In fact, arguably _the_ classic tool of demagogues.

So here's a denunciation for you: lexlibra's comment is lame, and yours is 10x
lamer.

People who advocate conclusions for which the evidence is weak merely lead one
away from the truth, but people who drag debates down to the level of
"whoever's not with us is against us" strike right at the heart of it.

~~~
lexlibra
_lexlibra's comment is lame ... People who advocate conclusions for which the
evidence is weak merely lead one away from the truth_

I'm curious what was lame about the comment?

The evidence for the two main propositions is pretty overwhelming. People of
West African descent dominate short distance running at the highest levels.
For instance, in the past six olympics, all 48 male finalists in the 100 meter
dash were of West African descent. Likewise, the speed positions in football
are dominated by African-Americans compared to the non-speed positions.

On the second proposition, for whatever the reason, black Americans of West
African descent consistently score a standard deviation lower on IQ tests and
IQ-like tests ( SAT, Armed Forces Qualifying Exam). The American Psychological
Association reports: "The relatively low mean of the distribution of African-
American intelligence test scores has been discussed for many years. Although
studies using different tests and samples yield a range of results, the Black
mean is typically about one standard deviation (about 15 points) below that of
Whites (Loehlin et al, 1975; Jensen, 1980; Reynolds et al, 1987)." (
<http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/taboos/apa_01.html> ) The existence of the IQ
gap is simply not in dispute.

It seems that my explanation fits the evidence better than anything else
proposed here. If there is evidence controverting my view, or supporting
another, I would be happy to hear it.

~~~
mhartl
I don't think there is anything lame about your comment. The article in
question explicitly involved IQ, and (because of differential representation
by position) implicitly involved race, so your comment was relevant and on
point, whether or not any given reader agrees with you.

------
demandred
_When asked about the balls he dropped in big spots, he responded, ‘What about
the ball I caught?’” So while an exceptionally score on a standardized test
might suggest dyslexia, the guy’s an egotistical bonehead even without
mitigating factors._

And that is why Manningham is in the NFL and OP is the one writing about him.
Excuse someone for wanting to focus on their accomplishments and not their
failures and for having a little backbone -- must be a terrible thing to have.
Great athletes who aren't _uber_ confident (whether or not they express it
externally) aren't great athletes.

~~~
byrneseyeview
I don't know enough people in sports to be sure about this, but my guess is
that the people who try to fix their mistakes rather than crow about their
successes are the ones who improve over time.

~~~
mechanical_fish
There's no contradiction there. You can crow about your successes all you
want, so long as you also consistently try to fix your mistakes.

In certain sports, anyway. In other fields -- customer service, for example --
things are different.

~~~
byrneseyeview
"Doc, the pill you gave me made me vomit uncontrollably all day, and once I
recovered I realized that I was still as sick as before."

"Oh yeah? Well what about all the times I told people to get some rest and
drink lots of fluids?"

Yes, I can see how this would be a good success strategy.

(I do agree that it's important to recognize when you're doing the right
thing, especially in a creative field. But when you're playing a game
according to strict rules, on a team, the need to avoid failure is probably
greater than the need to avoid success. Especially when you consider that the
people who make it to these teams probably emphasized pursuing success over
avoiding failure when they were younger, because someone in the 50th
percentile in a professional sport might have been in the 99th percentile as
an amateur. If nothing else, they should dampen their individuality to reflect
the higher average performance of their peers).

------
DaniFong
Interesting.

Yet in this study the Wonderlic is keyed to position, not performance in that
position.

We know that people largely stay within their positions, and we know that
metrics like the Wonderlic and the drafting Combine strongly influence both
draft decisions, and fielding decisions. We know that such metrics are
designed to correspond with existing ideas: in this case, that quarterbacks
were smart and tailbacks not so much.

It is plausible that this correlation represents bias in the decisions of the
coaches, not real ability.

In fact, that's what suggested by Malcolm Gladwell. He points out that if you
sort by Wonderlic scores, those who come out on top haven't really panned out
as great quarterback. If we then look at some of the best quarterbacks of all
time, you find that, on the Wonderlic, players are all over the map.

Malcolm Gladwell discusses this, on his talk about 'the mismatch problem'. I
highly recommend it.
[http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/conference/2008/gladwe...](http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/conference/2008/gladwell)

~~~
dpapathanasiou
I didn't like Gladwell's talk because he ignored baseball: teams like Oakland
and Boston have started to understand what metrics _do_ work in assessing
player performance (Michael Lewis wrote about this in detail in " _Moneyball_
").

By ignoring something because it doesn't fit in his neat theory, Gladwell
loses credibility on this topic.

~~~
DaniFong
You might like to know that Malcolm was asked in an interview elsewhere about
Moneyball, and he mentions it as one of his favorite books, and indeed he
calls it one of the most important works of nonfiction of the past decade.
Apparently he's found a way to resolve these difficulties, but not in a way
that found it into a 20 minute talk -- I guess it has to wait for the book.

~~~
dpapathanasiou
I suppose Gladwell likes _Moneyball_ because it's everything his books are
not: a Big Idea that is actually corroborated by all the evidence.

I remember reading _Blink_ and thinking, "hey, this anecdote just contradicted
a point he made earlier".

Gladwell is a great storyteller, but he wants so badly to find larger patterns
at work that he overlooks the possibility that there aren't any.

------
jm4
The Wikipedia entry for the Wonderlic test has some interesting information as
well: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderlic_Test>

There's also a "fan-made" sample test online:
<http://www.efplfp.stealingisgood.com/wpt.html>

While somewhat indicative of the types of questions you could expect to see on
the test the real thing is much more difficult. The questions start out very
easy and get progressively more difficult. Many of the questions are not
multiple choice either. You write in your answers.

Wikipedia says one football player, Pat McInally, got a perfect score. That's
an absolutely huge accomplishment. There is only a relative handful of people
in the world capable of that. In fact, the vast majority of people don't even
finish. Mensa uses the Wonderlic as one of their admission tests and you can
qualify with plenty of room to breathe even if you've left 10 questions blank.

------
occam
Hi, Occam here. This is just a map of the white/black ratio of each position.
There is a 15 point difference between the mean IQ of European-descended
(white) Americans and African-descended (black) Americans Please note this is
something You Can't Say so don't speak publicly of it.

The most interesting thing to note here is that white players score about half
a standard deviation higher than the national white IQ, and black players
score about half half a standard deviation higher than the national black IQ.
Since life is sort of an IQ test, this isn't too surprising. There are a lot
bad decisions you can make to screw up your football career before making the
NFL - a higher IQ will keep you away from these things.

As always Steve Sailer is indispensable in these matters: "Are football
players dumb? Actually, they are fairly smart. The NFL requires draft
prospects to take the Wonderlic IQ test. Offensive guards averaged 107,
centers and punters 106, quarterbacks and kickers 104. The speed positions
averaged lower: halfbacks, free safeties, cornerbacks, and wide receivers
averaged from 91 to 94. Still, at both the white positions and the black
positions, prospects scored about a half standard deviation higher than the
respective white and black national means.

Of course, IQ tests do a lousy job of measuring improvisational mental
ability, which football players, especially the black ones, are particularly
good at. (See my classic article "Great Black Hopes" for the full story.)"

That article is here: <http://www.isteve.com/blackath.htm>

~~~
logjam
Interesting that you simply term this a "white/black" ratio of each position.
Why didn't you call it an "advantaged/disadvantaged" ratio? Why not a
"beneficiary/victim" ratio?

If you are trying to chalk up these differences to some kind of genetic
disparity, _that_ in fact Has Been Said, repeatedly, for hundreds if not
thousands of years, _continues_ to be loudly parroted by certain segments, and
has been _repeatedly_ shown to be uninformed swill.

Why don't we see any discussion here about differences in IQ scores of people
from different economic classes, in a nation where opportunity (and even
access to healthcare) is so disparate between races?

~~~
lexlibra
I'd suggest reading this article:
<http://www.slate.com/id/2178122/entry/2178123/>

"white kids from households with annual incomes of $20,000 to $30,000 easily
outscore black kids from households with annual incomes of $80,000 to
$100,000."

In an adoption study where black and white babies were both adopted by high IQ
white parents, there was a one standard deviation difference ( 15 IQ points)
between the black and white children.

------
fallentimes
No real surprise that the player who is tackled the most (Tailback) has the
lowest IQ.

------
bouncingsoul
_Don’t tell Tufte that I’ve used the radius, not the proportional area, of the
circle as the value for each ellipse! A cardinal sin that I’m using in this
case to improve proportion and clarify a point._

I don't understand why this is okay. I imagine he means it was hard to
perceive the difference between correctly scaled circles, but that means the
data is close, not that you should misrepresent it.

I can see he's written a book about this, so I should assume he has good
reasons, but the ones he gave don't seem it.

The problem is that simply scaling the radius exaggerates the difference
between numbers because:

    
    
        * 26 is 30% more than 20, but
        * a circle with radius 26 is 69% larger 
          than a circle with radius 20.
    

I just read an article criticizing this exact thing, but I can't find it
again.

~~~
willchang
Actually both area and radius are completely meaningless as a representation
of intelligence. Perhaps some figure that represents percentile score would
work better -- something like an empty glass for 0%, a glass half-full for
50%, etc; or something like the circles that Consumer Reports uses for rating
products.

------
chwolfe
Interesting Outlier:
[http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/the_bonus/07/1...](http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/the_bonus/07/17/rolle/index.html)

------
jonknee
It's not everything though. Dan Marino had a famously low Wonderlic--15. It's
definitely believable when you hear him speak, but he still got it done in
amazing fashion on the field.

There's a big list here (it's a SWF and takes a while to load, but is very
interesting):

<http://www.macmirabile.com/wonderlic.htm>

------
mynameishere
They should compare staff positions instead, as coaches and water boys
probably display regular IQ patterns.

~~~
mattmaroon
I'm not sure what you mean here. Do you think the average NFL coach is not of
above average intelligence? That job is far too competitive for that to be
true.

~~~
mynameishere
Err, I mean: Instead of comparing linebackers and centers, compare different
types of staff on the teams, viz, coaches and water boys, etc.

~~~
mattmaroon
I would be interested in that. It seems coaches need a lot of the sorts of
intelligence (social, etc) that the IQ test misses entirely. But I'd be
willing to bet they're still among the smartest guys on the team.

------
mattmaroon
I can't say I agree with his conclusion. Lineman are there mainly to be big
and collide with other lineman, whereas receivers have a much more skill-
intensive job. They have to try to run in pattern while still breaking free of
defenseman, but doing so in such a way that the quarterback still knows where
to throw the ball. They have to then catch the ball (requiring them to predict
its flight path and adjust their path accordingly, an exercise in physics)
then run with it and avoid tackle.

I would think 10 extra IQ points would benefit a receiver or a running back
far more than a lineman.

~~~
evgen
It is obvious that you have never played football. Go read "The Blind Side"
and then get back to us.

