New Combine Test

Not to worry incoming rookies, the new combine test will be
on the computer, not scantron. Photo from Aerys Offsides.

We all hear so much each year around combine time about the Wonderlic test. How some of the best players of all-time scored very highly and some of the biggest busts of all time scored low. Of course, there have also been very good players who didn’t get great scores and some very bad players who had excellent scores.

The Wonderlic test was first implemented in the NFL by Tom Landry with the Dallas Cowboys about 40 years ago and soon became a part of the rookie experience as players moved from the college ranks to the NFL. It is a 50-question test with a 12-minute time limit.

While most NFL executives feel that the Wonderlic did well enough, it really only measured intelligence. And so a new test was developed and proposed to the NFL, called the Player Assessment Tool, or PAT.

The Wonderlic will not go away; rather the PAT, which is an hour-long computer-based test, will compliment it. The hope is that the new test can measure players’ mental aptitudes, drive, work ethic, and even which coaching styles players will best mesh with.

In fact, the new test may even be able to tell NFL coaches how players will most quickly learn their playbooks. The characteristics of players we can determine from this test are potentially limitless, if the test works as well in practice as it does on paper.

Unfortunately, there are no sample tests to be found online as there are for the Wonderlic, so I can’t tell you what the questions are like. But the attorney who proposed the PAT to the NFL said it is not a test that players can study for.

“We’re trying to capture different ways people are smart,” the attorney said.

Scores will not be shared openly as they are for the Wonderlic. Only one or two executives from each team will know the actual score each player receives on the PAT. Instead, teams will get a list of “coaching points” so they can determine whether a particular player would be a good fit for their organization.

I wish there were more specifics about the test, but it seems like a good idea. On paper, it looks like exactly the addition we need for evaluating rookies. Hopefully it works as well as we hope.

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