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RockRam
I think there are connections between the two most times. Although, I kind of think that perhaps IQ has less to do than having football smarts with playing good football, but it has more to do with how players conduct themselves on and off the field and maybe even with how well they play under duress and at the biggest moments.
I think that is the focus of the tests... prob more personality tests than pure IQ. That is what the Wonderlic was. But NFL doesn't do that anymore. Supposedly the Wonderlic could predict future trouble -- arrests and there was a NFL study to show that.
But NFL did a study and said there is not a connection between it and on-field performance. But I don't know what they have replaced it with.
NFL wants good football players but if you could chose between to guys who are pretty equal, maybe knowing a guy has a variance on some test that shows he's more likely than the other to get into some sort of legal trouble than the other and you have also seen some data that he's been like that in the past, it wold make sense to pick the guy with the less risk -- all else being equal.
As far as football smarts ... you'd have to define football smarts. I see it as being able to digest a playbook, and understand what to do on the field but also someone who can adjust on the fly, recognize things from scouting reports. Hey, they are in 12 personnel with this TE and in this formation they run left 65% of the time ... but notices something and diagnose the play ...
And that's going to make him better then just pure athleticism.
But then look at Lawrence Taylor. I don't know about book smarts but he had football smarts but then he'd play on crack. So what did that do? Make him better? Or worse. And he did it a lot while he was playing. Said during games he wanted the game to get over so he could get high.
