NFL

Rumor Has It Terrelle Pryor Bombed His Wonderlic…But Not Everyone’s Buying It (UPDATE)

Former Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor sure has taken a lot of heat in 2011. It started with the memorabilia-selling affair, which first got him suspended, and eventually just led to the end of his Ohio State career (after being ripped plenty by those who thought he was primarily responsible for ending the tenure of hugely successful Ohio State coach Jim Tressel). It continued with his entry into the NFL, where the league waited and waited before finally declaring him eligible for its supplemental draft…where his selection by the Oakland Raiders became an instant punchline. Oh, and the NFL suspended Pryor, too.

We guess, then, it’s no surprise that the flow of negative Pryor-related news didn’t end with his supplemental draft selection – we’ve got a wealth of pre-draft events to mine. One of those: the Wonderlic test, the times multiple-choice exam teams use to help determine a player’s intelligence. It’s far from an end-all be-all (it’s barely a be-something, honestly), but it’s good for fans of one college to use as trash-talk fodder if an alum of a rival school posts a particularly bad score. The maximum Wonderlic score is 50. The average is 21. And according to Bob McGinn of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel earlier today, Pryor’s Wonderlic score: 7.

The mocking began with McGinn himself (“Wonder why Terrelle Pryor made so many on-, off-field bad decisions?”) and continued around Twitter. But it was met with some skepticism, too. For one thing, Deadspin pointed out that one of the most infamous low Wonderlic scores – Vince Young’s supposed 6 – was a fake. Additionally, an interesting source chiomed in to voice some doubt about McGinn’s report: ESPN’s Colin Cowherd:

friend recently talked to a raiders scout—told me minutes ago—Pryor story on his test score–not what he heard. Pryor did OK.

Cowherd’s not exactly shy about ripping (even if it’s for no good reason), so when he doesn’t rip someone even when presented with a very rippable piece of news, in our minds that raises doubt (in addition to the fact that no one but McGinn seems to have reported the 7). Maybe Pryor really did score a 7, but right now, there’s not enough for us to solidly believe that’s the case (UPDATE: even less reason to think so now; McGinn’s not looking too good). And even if he did, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything about his NFL career. For now, it’s just one more way to ridicule Terrelle Pryor – and it’s not like his detractors were running low on those to begin with. (UPDATE 2: Pryor says that he, in fact, scored a 22. McGinn looks worse and worse…apparently Pryor took the test twice, recording the higher score the second time. Are we all done caring about this? Good.)

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