Wonderlicgate
By: Stewart Mandell
SI.com
You'll have to pardon my confusion. It's just that I recently emerged from a seven-week hibernation that began the day after the Rose Bowl, and I can't figure out how, in that time, Vince Young went from being the nation's reigning football hero to a plummeting draft prospect who supposedly can't run, can't throw, can't catch, can't dress himself, can't sing, doesn't know the Dewey decimal system and, based on last weekend's combine Wonderlic bombshell, can't read or write, either.
Our society in general has an obsession with tearing down those at the top, but the great Vince Young dismantling of 2006 is on its way to setting a new land-speed record. They'd barely had time to clean up the confetti in Pasadena before the first whispers began -- about his unconventional throwing motion (with which he must have accidentally completed 65 percent of his passes last season), about his inability to throw the deep ball (I must have imagined that 75-yard touchdown I saw him throw at last year's Texas Tech game), how he'll be lost when he doesn't get to line up in the shotgun every snap like he did in college (Drew Brees must not be having the same problem). By the time word spread of his so-so showing at a college all-star skills competition in late January, the pundits had officially ruled out any chance of the Texans taking him No. 1. By the time Young, who went 30-2 as a starter at Texas, showed up at the White House without a suit two weeks ago, he'd been passed up in most mock drafts by Vanderbilt's Jay Cutler -- a guy who went 11-34.
And that was before Young got to the dreaded Wonderlic. There are only about eight billion conflicting reports out there right now as to what exactly took place in Indianapolis this weekend -- that Young scored a disastrous 6 out of 50, retook it and got a 16, that the first test wasn't graded properly, that his agent inexplicably failed to tell him about this part of the combine, that the first score was legit and the retake was part of an NFL cover-up of its embarrassment at letting the score leak in the first place. Either way, 6 or 16, Young bombed. There's no sugar-coating that. While plenty of elite prospects over the years have done similarly poorly and not had it affect their draft status, the NFL cognoscenti say they hold quarterbacks to a different standard. They're understandably reluctant to hand their playbook over to a guy who can't figure out which is the ninth month of the year.
And so, as word of the disastrous test score made the rounds among scouts and GMs in Indy, Young began free-falling down draft boards faster than Bode Miller's marketability. Soon he will be slotted into a sixth-round spot right between the backup left tackle at Stanford and an unknown semipro receiver in Bentonville, Ark., who knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a scout who says the kid has "tremendous upside."
Young, of course, does not fit that mold and is therefore considered a "risk." So the Wonderlic fiasco gives GMs a perfect excuse to pass on what most rational observers would consider to be a player of rare talent. I won't go so far as to say it's a racial thing (the wholly unconventional Michael Vick did go No. 1 overall, and a 12 on the Wonderlic didn't stop Donovan McNabb from going No. 2), but the NFL clearly remains highly skeptical of so-called "running quarterbacks" at a time when mobile QBs and spread offenses are becoming increasingly prevalent at the college level. That NFL types are so in love with Cutler -- who, even with an All-SEC senior season, wouldn't have registered on too many top 10 lists of college quarterbacks last season -- speaks volumes about their severe conservatism.
You'd have to be pretty simple-minded to suggest that Young's 467 yards against USC -- the same team that, according to my colleague Don Banks, could have 12 to 14 players drafted in April -- were due entirely to his ability to run fast. Texas' shotgun, zone-read offense was based on the same principles as the one last year's No. 1 pick, Alex Smith, ran at Utah. Smith, of course, was a near rocket scientist who graduated in 2? years, which must have alleviated the 49ers' concerns about his ability to make the transition. Maybe bombing a 50-question test means Young can't do the same. To the scouting departments of the Texans and Titans, however, I'd recommend using any or all of these three alternative measuring tools before making up your mind:
1) Talk to him
2) Talk to some of the USC (or Oklahoma, or Ohio State) defenders in the draft who played against him, and ask whether they think he gets easily confused.
Or ...
3) Watch some tape.
By: Stewart Mandell
SI.com
You'll have to pardon my confusion. It's just that I recently emerged from a seven-week hibernation that began the day after the Rose Bowl, and I can't figure out how, in that time, Vince Young went from being the nation's reigning football hero to a plummeting draft prospect who supposedly can't run, can't throw, can't catch, can't dress himself, can't sing, doesn't know the Dewey decimal system and, based on last weekend's combine Wonderlic bombshell, can't read or write, either.
Our society in general has an obsession with tearing down those at the top, but the great Vince Young dismantling of 2006 is on its way to setting a new land-speed record. They'd barely had time to clean up the confetti in Pasadena before the first whispers began -- about his unconventional throwing motion (with which he must have accidentally completed 65 percent of his passes last season), about his inability to throw the deep ball (I must have imagined that 75-yard touchdown I saw him throw at last year's Texas Tech game), how he'll be lost when he doesn't get to line up in the shotgun every snap like he did in college (Drew Brees must not be having the same problem). By the time word spread of his so-so showing at a college all-star skills competition in late January, the pundits had officially ruled out any chance of the Texans taking him No. 1. By the time Young, who went 30-2 as a starter at Texas, showed up at the White House without a suit two weeks ago, he'd been passed up in most mock drafts by Vanderbilt's Jay Cutler -- a guy who went 11-34.
And that was before Young got to the dreaded Wonderlic. There are only about eight billion conflicting reports out there right now as to what exactly took place in Indianapolis this weekend -- that Young scored a disastrous 6 out of 50, retook it and got a 16, that the first test wasn't graded properly, that his agent inexplicably failed to tell him about this part of the combine, that the first score was legit and the retake was part of an NFL cover-up of its embarrassment at letting the score leak in the first place. Either way, 6 or 16, Young bombed. There's no sugar-coating that. While plenty of elite prospects over the years have done similarly poorly and not had it affect their draft status, the NFL cognoscenti say they hold quarterbacks to a different standard. They're understandably reluctant to hand their playbook over to a guy who can't figure out which is the ninth month of the year.
And so, as word of the disastrous test score made the rounds among scouts and GMs in Indy, Young began free-falling down draft boards faster than Bode Miller's marketability. Soon he will be slotted into a sixth-round spot right between the backup left tackle at Stanford and an unknown semipro receiver in Bentonville, Ark., who knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a scout who says the kid has "tremendous upside."
Young, of course, does not fit that mold and is therefore considered a "risk." So the Wonderlic fiasco gives GMs a perfect excuse to pass on what most rational observers would consider to be a player of rare talent. I won't go so far as to say it's a racial thing (the wholly unconventional Michael Vick did go No. 1 overall, and a 12 on the Wonderlic didn't stop Donovan McNabb from going No. 2), but the NFL clearly remains highly skeptical of so-called "running quarterbacks" at a time when mobile QBs and spread offenses are becoming increasingly prevalent at the college level. That NFL types are so in love with Cutler -- who, even with an All-SEC senior season, wouldn't have registered on too many top 10 lists of college quarterbacks last season -- speaks volumes about their severe conservatism.
You'd have to be pretty simple-minded to suggest that Young's 467 yards against USC -- the same team that, according to my colleague Don Banks, could have 12 to 14 players drafted in April -- were due entirely to his ability to run fast. Texas' shotgun, zone-read offense was based on the same principles as the one last year's No. 1 pick, Alex Smith, ran at Utah. Smith, of course, was a near rocket scientist who graduated in 2? years, which must have alleviated the 49ers' concerns about his ability to make the transition. Maybe bombing a 50-question test means Young can't do the same. To the scouting departments of the Texans and Titans, however, I'd recommend using any or all of these three alternative measuring tools before making up your mind:
1) Talk to him
2) Talk to some of the USC (or Oklahoma, or Ohio State) defenders in the draft who played against him, and ask whether they think he gets easily confused.
Or ...
3) Watch some tape.
