A surprising number of you have expressed disagreement with our assessment that Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy got 48 of 50 questions correct on the Wonderlic test could be viewed by some coaches as a negative.
Don’t confuse our belief that some coaches could resist the idea of having a smarty pants in the locker room as a belief that we think it’s bad to be too smart. In our view, you can never be too smart.
But some NFL coaches may think a guy can be too smart. If you don’t believe us, take it from Pat McInally, the only guy who ever scored a perfect 50 in the Wonderlic.
McInally believes the performance actually drove him down the board.
“How did it hurt me in the draft?” McInally told Rivals.com in 2006. “Coaches and front-office guys don’t like extremes one way or the other, but particularly not on the high side. I think they think guys who are intelligent will challenge authority too much.”
Coaches don’t want clubhouse lawyers. Smart guys could fill that role. Though we think plenty of not smart guys can be clubhouse lawyers, too, smart guys can use that power against the coaching staff, if they so choose.
The real question is to find out whether the smart guy could be inclined to try to be a wiseguy.