A. Dalton vs. C. Palmer

[alleycat]

I just started reading David Brooks' blog in the NYTimes (http://brooks.blogs.nytimes.com/). Pretty fascinating stuff focusing mostly on behavior. He leans to the other side of the aisle than I do, but I've always found him to be wonderfully sensible and objective. Anyway, his blog referred to an article in Slate magazine evaluating Quarterbacks and their eventual performance based not on the Wonderlic - which is notoriously inaccurate (see Alex Smith), but on the language the QB's actually use in interviews which is terrifically predictive of success (Aaron Rodgers was off the charts):

"It’s notoriously difficult to figure out which top collegiate quarterbacks will succeed in the NFL. Pro teams give prospects an SAT-type test called the Wonderlic test, which doesn’t predict all that accurately. A company called Achievement Metrics, on the other hand, studies the words college athletes use in media interviews. Some use words that signal high degrees of confidence, conceptual complexity and team orientation. Others use words that signal self-centeredness and distrust.

The results of their work were recently written up by Machael Agger in Slate. The most arresting example concerns a choice the San Francisco 49ers faced in 2005, whether to draft Alex Smith or Aaron Rodgers as their future quarterback. Both were college stars and Smith had a phenomenal score on the Wonderlic test. But Smith didn’t use common leadership words in his interviews, while Rodgers had leadership words spewing out of his mouth."

Guess who scored quite high, and who scored low (sorry, can't paste the graphics)?

/>http://www.slate.com/id/2292636/

It's actually quite amazing when looking at the graph to see which types of QB's land where on the Positive Power vs Ingroup Affiliation scores. Anyway, I'm feeling good about Dalton - and even better about kicking that other POS to the curb!

Edited July 10, 2011 by Bengalszone Billy
Inserting graphics for alleycat.

[DC_Bengals_Fan]

It's actually quite amazing when looking at the graph to see which types of QB's land where on the Positive Power vs Ingroup Affiliation scores. Anyway, I'm feeling good about Dalton - and even better about kicking that other POS to the curb!

It's certainly interesting, but as a professional stat dweeb I don't think I'd draw too many conclusions here. Especially given that you'd be signing Sexy Rexy right now.