Poll: Newton vs. Stafford

[Water Buffalo]

And how would we rate these guys?

Donovan McNabb
Terry Bradshaw
Dan Marino
Jim Kelly
Michael Vick
Brett Favre

All of these guys scored lower on the wonderlic than Cam Newton with the exception of Favre (22) and half of them are already in the Hall of Fame.

What about these?

Ryan Fitzpatrick
Blaine Gabbert
Alex Smith
Matt Leinart

Just a sampling of guys with really high scores...some of those guys have gone really far.

I've seen many of the test questions and I would never use it as a tool to determine mental competence of anyone. I have no idea why they even use the stupid thing. If a guy has all the physical tools to be a great QB...he is going to be a great QB. It isn't any more complicated than that.

I basically just said this exact same thing, just in slightly different words, in a PM to Bobson. How people are dismissing Cam as a fantasy asset simply because they THINK he's dumb is beyond me. The Wonderlic means very, very little in the NFL, especially when trying to determine fantasy value.

[bconnelly]

And how would we rate these guys?

Donovan McNabb - never was an elite passer
Terry Bradshaw- completely different NFL
Dan Marino
Jim Kelly
Michael Vick-never was an elite passer
Brett Favre

All of these guys scored lower on the wonderlic than Cam Newton with the exception of Favre (22) and half of them are already in the Hall of Fame.

What about these?

Ryan Fitzpatrick
Blaine Gabbert
Alex Smith
Matt Leinart

Just a sampling of guys with really high scores...some of those guys have gone really far.

I've seen many of the test questions and I would never use it as a tool to determine mental competence of anyone. I have no idea why they even use the stupid thing. If a guy has all the physical tools to be a great QB...he is going to be a great QB. It isn't any more complicated than that.

as far as the highly rated wonderlic guys that busted, like i said in a different forum post, a good wonderlic is no assurance that someone will be an elite and intelligent passer, but a bad wonderlic is >95% of the time assurance that someone will not be an elite passer

[bconnelly]

And how would we rate these guys?

Donovan McNabb - never was an elite passer
Terry Bradshaw- completely different NFL
Dan Marino
Jim Kelly
Michael Vick-never was an elite passer
Brett Favre

All of these guys scored lower on the wonderlic than Cam Newton with the exception of Favre (22) and half of them are already in the Hall of Fame.

What about these?

Ryan Fitzpatrick
Blaine Gabbert
Alex Smith
Matt Leinart

Just a sampling of guys with really high scores...some of those guys have gone really far.

I've seen many of the test questions and I would never use it as a tool to determine mental competence of anyone. I have no idea why they even use the stupid thing. If a guy has all the physical tools to be a great QB...he is going to be a great QB. It isn't any more complicated than that.

as far as the highly rated wonderlic guys that busted, like i said in a different forum post, a good wonderlic is no assurance that someone will be an elite and intelligent passer, but a bad wonderlic is >95% of the time assurance that someone will not be an elite passer

in the modern NFL and with it's style, i'm only looking back 10-12 years to get a sense of what kind of QB can be successful. Manning, Manning, Brady, Brees, Rodgers, Big Ben.

favre is my favorite QB of all time but I will also admit that his play style was not one that matches the aforementioned names in many ways - leading to his career INT record.

[skip]

as far as the highly rated wonderlic guys that busted, like i said in a different forum post, a good wonderlic is no assurance that someone will be an elite and intelligent passer, but a bad wonderlic is >95% of the time assurance that someone will not be an elite passer

You seem like you prefer trend analysis which makes me assume that you also favor statistical analysis. In order to properly put things in perspective you are required analyze the successes and busts at both ends of the scale. Your 95% number is bogus and made up and not based on anything factual. I would also like to know what designates a "good" score or a "bad' score in your analysis and if this is just an arbitrary line that you are drawing.

If I translate your post correctly:
A good score means nothing (since it neither predicts the success or failure of anyone)
A bad score means everything (assuming one can put a definition on a bad score)

I have listed several extremely successful QBs which you cannot answer for...but you will probably say they fall in the 5%. So does Cam. Problem solved.

So to look into this deeper, I went here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderlic_Test

And there is some very fascinating things:

A 2005 study by McDonald Mirabile found that there is no significant correlation between Wonderlic scores and a quarterback's passer rating, and no significant correlation between Wonderlic scores and a quarterback's salary.

Similarly, a 2009 study by Brian D. Lyons, Brian J. Hoffman, and John W. Michel found that Wonderlic test scores failed to positively and significantly predict future NFL performance for any position.

The Lyons study also found that the relationship between Wonderlic test scores and future NFL performance was negative for a few positions, indicating the higher a player scores on the Wonderlic test, the worse the player will perform in the NFL.


Based on everything that I can see both low scores AND high scores are bad...which translates to wanting players close to the mean. But perhaps I am reading too deeply into that? I don't think so.

Bottom line for me is the Wonderlic is a predictor of nothing. Guys at the top are failures. Guys at the bottom are failures. It is all about having the physical tools. The reality is that there are a LOT of starting QBs who simply don't have them. Cam Newton does. People can dismiss him all they want but at the end of his career we are going to be looking at a guy who compares favorably to that first list and not the second.

[Water Buffalo]

And how would we rate these guys?

Donovan McNabb - never was an elite passer
Terry Bradshaw- completely different NFL
Dan Marino
Jim Kelly
Michael Vick-never was an elite passer
Brett Favre

All of these guys scored lower on the wonderlic than Cam Newton with the exception of Favre (22) and half of them are already in the Hall of Fame.

What about these?

Ryan Fitzpatrick
Blaine Gabbert
Alex Smith
Matt Leinart

Just a sampling of guys with really high scores...some of those guys have gone really far.

I've seen many of the test questions and I would never use it as a tool to determine mental competence of anyone. I have no idea why they even use the stupid thing. If a guy has all the physical tools to be a great QB...he is going to be a great QB. It isn't any more complicated than that.

as far as the highly rated wonderlic guys that busted, like i said in a different forum post, a good wonderlic is no assurance that someone will be an elite and intelligent passer, but a bad wonderlic is >95% of the time assurance that someone will not be an elite passer

And in other news, >97% of all stats are completely pulled out of one's arse.

[bconnelly]

I am trying to look for the website i read nearly 1 year ago. the breaking point wonderlic was 25. Modern day elite PASSING quarterbacks all had scores greater than 25 or perhaps even 30.

the study in wikipedia is severely dated. i did address Vick and McNabb they were never elite PASSING QBs. Bradshaw, Kelly and Marino are not from the same era, which seems like an excuse, but its not. you need to use relevant data to make a relevant decision. if this was 10 years ago, i would care about Marino and the wonderlic. this is 2012. looking back for the last 10 years, we've see the advent of the new passing era.

that is why i butted into this conversation. i was defending the case for Stafford remaining a prolific PASSEr and the risk/downside of Cam losing PASSING. stafford's wonderlic is 38 and this strong wonderlic is consistent with every other CURRENT elite QB in the league. yes, running yards matter for fantasy and mcnabb, vick and newton will all be great in this respect, but i had thought we were specifically talking about the passing game and defenses adjusting to QBs and QBs adjusting to defenses, etc, etc

[bconnelly]

i also addressed Favre as an aberration to this and yes an exception. no set of statistics can guarantee 100% predictability. i really wish i stil had the link to the website, but if you really just look up all of the wonderlics for all of the current elite QB of our day, you would see something glaringly consistent.this isn't out of my bleep, this is readily accessible

[skip]

i also addressed Favre as an aberration to this and yes an exception. no set of statistics can guarantee 100% predictability. i really wish i stil had the link to the website, but if you really just look up all of the wonderlics for all of the current elite QB of our day, you would see something glaringly consistent.this isn't out of my bleep, this is readily accessible

On the contrary what I observe is you making excuses to throw out any evidence which contradicts your theory...but that is a lot of what modern science does. Everything is built on a certain assumption. Data is then used to back it up. Contradictory data is explained away. You further try to isolate a group of "elite" without at the same time identifying the unpredictable nature of the system where it is a total failure.

If the Wonderlic is of any significance it will have similar predictability regardless of time or situation. If a QB in the "modern" era (arbitrarily defined) requires a minimum score to predict success or failure then the same would have to be true for a QB of any era or one would at least expect them to be very close with small deviation. Otherwise what we have is a much wider gap and large deviation. Once the deviation grows too large then the data becomes less and less reliable.

[Water Buffalo]

I am trying to look for the website i read nearly 1 year ago. the breaking point wonderlic was 25. Modern day elite PASSING quarterbacks all had scores greater than 25 or perhaps even 30.

the study in wikipedia is severely dated. i did address Vick and McNabb they were never elite PASSING QBs. Bradshaw, Kelly and Marino are not from the same era, which seems like an excuse, but its not. you need to use relevant data to make a relevant decision. if this was 10 years ago, i would care about Marino and the wonderlic. this is 2012. looking back for the last 10 years, we've see the advent of the new passing era.

that is why i butted into this conversation. i was defending the case for Stafford remaining a prolific PASSEr and the risk/downside of Cam losing PASSING. stafford's wonderlic is 38 and this strong wonderlic is consistent with every other CURRENT elite QB in the league. yes, running yards matter for fantasy and mcnabb, vick and newton will all be great in this respect, but i had thought we were specifically talking about the passing game and defenses adjusting to QBs and QBs adjusting to defenses, etc, etc

I really don't want to turn this into a race discussion, or insinuate anything with my comments about race vs intelligence so I do sincerely hope no one gets offended by me being intrigued by data here.

I did notice something sort of interesting when looking through a list of QBs and their wonderlic scores though, and I figured it might be worth mentioning because I think it actually HELPS Cam's cause if you are going to use the wonderlic to predict QB success.

You seem to be correct in noticing a correlation between the successful modern day white QBs having relatively higher scores (if you count scores in the high 20s and 30s as relatively high). It's intriguing though, because it looks to me like the modern day black QBs that have been successful don't necessarily need high scores in order to achieve that level of success.

Looking at the list of guys who scored LOWER than Newton's 22, we've got:

Vick - 20
Culpepper - 18
Steve McNair - 15
Cunningham - 15 (yeah, he's not exactly super modern)
McNabb - 14

I'm sure I'm forgetting or missing someone, but that list is basically a who's who of successful black quarterbacks of the modern era from both an NFL and fantasy perspective. Now maybe it's just pure coincidence, but if anything, this makes me even less worried about Newton's score of 22... not that I was the least bit concerned in the first place.

Still though, all of this other wonderlic stuff aside, I don't understand why Newton needs to be an ELITE passing QB in order for people to trust him as a fantasy player. Rushing is going to be a part of his game, and it's a big part of his fantasy appeal. Lets not forget that the fantasy MVP of 2010, Michael Vick, threw for only 3018 yards that season. Yes, he did miss some time due to injury and would have had higher yardage totals had he played the entire year, but he still wasn't on pace for an ELITE passing season. He was valuable because he had good (but not elite) passing totals AND ridiculous rushing stats, just like Newton seems capable of repeating on a yearly basis.

[Joey Pigskins]

And how would we rate these guys?

Donovan McNabb - never was an elite passer
Terry Bradshaw- completely different NFL
Dan Marino
Jim Kelly
Michael Vick-never was an elite passer
Brett Favre

All of these guys scored lower on the wonderlic than Cam Newton with the exception of Favre (22) and half of them are already in the Hall of Fame.

What about these?

Ryan Fitzpatrick
Blaine Gabbert
Alex Smith
Matt Leinart

Just a sampling of guys with really high scores...some of those guys have gone really far.

I've seen many of the test questions and I would never use it as a tool to determine mental competence of anyone. I have no idea why they even use the stupid thing. If a guy has all the physical tools to be a great QB...he is going to be a great QB. It isn't any more complicated than that.

as far as the highly rated wonderlic guys that busted, like i said in a different forum post, a good wonderlic is no assurance that someone will be an elite and intelligent passer, but a bad wonderlic is >95% of the time assurance that someone will not be an elite passer

And in other news, >97% of all stats are completely pulled out of one's arse.

lol

[Pullo Vision]

I think we all understand and agree what Cam did as a rookie was something special. But the point that some members and myself are trying to make is that regardless if he was a rookie or not we should not expect these type of numbers going forward just because it happened once. I also feel because Cam was a rookie and defensive coordinators didn't have a lot of tape to use to prepare for him aided in his success.

I'll be the first to admit I was wrong about Newton. But my gut feeling says he will regress as opposing teams have enough tape on him now to game plan. Take a look at his last eight games, two games over 212 yards passing with three games under 200.

I don't expect Cam to bust, I simply expect him to regress where as I expect Stafford to hold steady...

I don't understand, I guess, why people think that Cam won't have a typical starting QB's arch of learning and improving. That somehow he got 4000 passing yards on being a gimmick and he'll never come close to that again once teams get a book on him. That he has no ability to learn and improve.

I think cam could regress this next season, certainly. But I just don't think it's possible that this is the most yards he'll ever pass for, that he will never improve as a passer. I don't think that is in anyway consistent with the career arcs of talented QB's.

I've never thrown out the idea that Cam will learn and improve. I expect him to. However, like an arms race, I wouldn't be surprised if defenses learn and improve from watching Cam's 2011 tape MORE THAN Cam's learns and improves this offseason. While I don't think there's a strong similarity in terms of game style, the way defenses cracked down on Vick after an offseason to prepare is instructive.

As another example, take Rick Mirer. As Wiki notes, "In his rookie year, he set NFL rookie records for attempts, completions & yards... [and] was also runner up in the offensive rookie of the year voting". Bill Walsh thought highly of him- "Rick Mirer is the next Joe Montana." So what happened? Why isn't Mirer's name scattered throughout the NFL passing record books?

Defenses had an offseason to study his tendencies. The discovered he struggled throwing to his left. Defenders started stacking to his right and resulted in ugly throws/picks and sacks/near-sacks. As former beat writer John Clayton noted, "the problem is he never got better after that" first year.

Rick Mirer- NFL Net's #4 Draft Bust- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ATqj1euf2o (I wish I could get the insert youtube video feature to work...)

Tebow, to me, is another example. Statistically, he performed well at times, though it may have been uneven. I find it interesting that there's the general belief that team's will adjust to Tebow with an offseason to prepare, but Newton will overcome defensive efforts. Tebow's 2011 had significant highs and lows production-wise- very uneven. Newton, on the other hand, started out hot, with the 1st 2 games over 400 yards passing each and 5 total 2TDs. However, after his first 4 games, he didn't record a single game over 300 yards passing, the new benchmark in this pass-happy league. (On the flip side, he did manage to keep his completion percentage in the high/respectable range. Another interesting thing I just noticed- his team lost every game he threw for 300 yards or more. I wonder if that reflects on a conscious effort on the coaching staff, or more on Newton.)

Cam may improve, but will he improve more than defenses improve? That's the question to me. For the price tag to get Newton, I'm not willing to take that gamble.

[RobertBobson]

Not being able to throw to your left is rather significant, tangible flaw in Mirer's game. If you have found such a significant, tangible flaw in Cam's game I'd be all ears to hear what it is, because that is exactly the kind of criticism I find useful and interesting. Professing faith that defenses will be likely to out smart Cam I do not find interesting or useful.

[Pullo Vision]

Not being able to throw to your left is rather significant, tangible flaw in Mirer's game. If you have found such a significant, tangible flaw in Cam's I'd be all ears to hear what it is.

I'd agree it's an extreme example. I wonder what less significant flaw teams could discover. If he played in the NFC West or AFC East, I'd be more worried about his prospects, but Gregg Williams took the only quality d-coord out of the division.

Edit- thoughts on Cam's potential rate of development and defenses rate of discovering weaknesses?

Edit 2- I think it's also important to note that pundits complete missed that flaw leading up to the draft (many preferring him to Bledsoe) and after the 1st year. Even after he was exposed, the Bears traded a 1st for him. Not the best organization, but shows that those paid to know these things may not.

[RobertBobson]

It's weird that Mirer's excellent 31 on the wonderlic didn't help him throw to his left..

[RobertBobson]

Edit- thoughts on Cam's potential rate of development and defenses rate of discovering weaknesses?

I think this is a difficult question to answer, because it's so abstract. Basically, it's like saying " gosh, defenses sure are swell these days. you just know they are going to find something on Cam. How do you think Cam is going to be able to fix that something?" I don't think that kind of speculation is useful. I'm much more interested in discovering what those somethings, those weaknesses in his game are. If he has some flaw as significant as not being able to throw to his left, that would be a legitimate concern, and worth talking about. But speculating on the rate of Cam's ability to fix hypothetical flaws, verses defenses ability to find them... I just don't know how to answer that in any meaningful way.