Wonderlic Scores in the NFL: Highest, Lowest and What the Test Measures

The highest publicly known NFL Wonderlic score is a perfect 50, by Bengals punter Pat McInally. The lowest widely reported is a 4, attributed to cornerback Morris Claiborne in 2012. The league never released any score, so every number is a leak. The NFL used the 50-question, 12-minute test for decades and dropped it before the 2022 Combine.

Last updated: September 25, 2026.

This page ranks the highest and lowest reported scores with the outlet behind each one, flags the famous numbers that are wrong, gives the position averages with their real age, explains why the league walked away, and shows what an NFL score would mean if you sat the same test for an ordinary job.

Quick takeaways

• No NFL Wonderlic score was ever officially released. Sports Illustrated said in 2011 that scores "are not released by the league and are considered unofficial", and Roger Goodell's April 2012 memo to clubs, reported by Albert Breer, called them "strictly confidential for club use only."
• Pat McInally's 50 is the only publicly known perfect score. Ryan Fitzpatrick's 48 is the highest reported for a quarterback.
• Several famous numbers are wrong. Bob McGinn's initial 2020 figures put Justin Herbert at 25, Tua Tagovailoa at 13 and Jalen Hurts at 18. Albert Breer then reported 39, 19 and 21. The wrong ones still circulate.
• The position-average table republished everywhere (offensive tackles 26, quarterbacks 24, running backs 16) traces to a book published in 1984.
• The overall average is about 20 to 21, so many of the "low" NFL numbers people mock are closer to normal than the internet suggests.
• The NFL dropped the test before the 2022 Combine. Many teams moved to S2 Cognition, and its scores have already started leaking too.

What the Wonderlic measured at the Combine

The Combine version was the standard Wonderlic Personnel Test: 50 questions in 12 minutes, one point per correct answer, 0 to 50. The items mix arithmetic, word problems, vocabulary, logic and pattern recognition, and they get harder as the paper goes on. Wonderlic still sells the same 50-in-12 format today as the cognitive section of Wonderlic Select.

Almost nobody finishes. Running out of time is the design, which is why raw scores look low next to a school exam. A score is the count of correct answers against all 50, not a percentage of the questions attempted. So a reported 20 is not a failing grade: it is the midpoint of the applicant pool. Our guide to Wonderlic score bands, cutoffs and the IQ conversion explains the whole scale.

NFL teams began using the test in the late 1960s, and it became a fixture of the Scouting Combine for roughly five decades.

Why every number on this page is a leak

Results went to clubs, not to the public. The entire archive of NFL Wonderlic scores is a record of what reporters were told, not a record of anything the league published. Scores get garbled as they pass between people, corrections rarely travel as far as the original, and a player cannot confirm or deny a number he was never shown. That is how Greg McElroy ended up publicly confirming a score he could not have known.

The tables below carry a Status column for that reason.

• Multiply reported: several named outlets agree.
• Single named source: one outlet put its name on it.
• Corrected: the circulating number is wrong, and the corrected one is given.
• Disputed: someone contested it on the record.
• Unsourced: no named outlet, and no contest either.

The highest reported NFL Wonderlic scores

Player	Position	Draft year	Score	Reported by	Status
Pat McInally	Punter	1975	50	Andre Vergara, FOX Sports; Darren Rovell, ESPN; Harvard Magazine	Multiply reported
Mike Mamula	DE	1995	49	David M. Hale, ESPN	Single named source
Ryan Fitzpatrick	QB	2005	48	Washington Post; Harvard Magazine; NYJets.com	Multiply reported
Kevin Curtis	WR	2003	48	Doug Robinson, Deseret News	Single named source
Benjamin Watson	TE	2004	48	Hayden Bird, Boston.com	Single named source
Greg McElroy	QB	2011	43 (not the 48 that circulates)	Mike Florio, PFT; Chris Mortensen, ESPN	Corrected
Eli Manning	QB	2004	39	David Goldenberg, Mental Floss	Single named source
Justin Herbert	QB	2020	39 (not the 25 that circulates)	Albert Breer, SI	Corrected
Joe Thuney	G	2016	39	Matt Verderame, Sporting News	Single named source
Akili Smith	QB	1999	37 (retake)	Geoff Hobson, Cincinnati Enquirer	Single named source
Tony Romo	QB	2003	37	Sports Illustrated	Single named source
Christian Ponder	QB	2011	35	Chris Mortensen, ESPN	Single named source

McInally is the only publicly known perfect 50. He later retook the test at Wonderlic's own request and missed one. Fitzpatrick's 48 comes with the detail that survives best: NYJets.com reports he finished in nine minutes and left one question blank. The version where he scored a perfect 50 in nine minutes is myth, and Fitzpatrick has said so himself.

The lowest reported NFL Wonderlic scores

Player	Position	Draft year	Score	Reported by	Status
Morris Claiborne	CB	2012	4	Mike Florio, PFT, citing multiple league sources	Single named source
Vince Young	QB	2006	6 (SI lists 15)	Circulated widely; contested on the record	Disputed
Frank Gore	RB	2005	6	No named outlet	Unsourced
Jeff George	QB	1990	10	Sports Illustrated	Single named source
Dan Marino	QB	1983	15 (16 circulates via aggregators)	Sports Illustrated	Single named source
Jim Kelly	QB	1983	15	Sports Illustrated	Single named source
Steve McNair	QB	1995	15	Sports Illustrated	Single named source
Akili Smith	QB	1999	16 (first attempt)	Geoff Hobson, Cincinnati Enquirer	Single named source
Terry Bradshaw	QB	1970	16 (15 also circulates)	Sports Illustrated; Mental Floss differs	Disputed
Tua Tagovailoa	QB	2020	19 (not the 13 that circulates)	Albert Breer, SI	Corrected
Kyler Murray	QB	2019	20	Bob McGinn	Single named source
Jalen Hurts	QB	2020	21 (not the 18 that circulates)	Albert Breer, SI	Corrected

Three of these deserve their footnotes. Claiborne's 4 came with context from an LSU source who told ESPN, "Mo has a high football IQ. He just learns in a different way." He still went sixth overall and played nine NFL seasons. Vince Young's 6 was called inaccurate by NFL spokesman Steve Alic and disputed on the record by Charley Casserly, and a 16 on a retake is widely repeated. Terry Bradshaw's number is better treated as folklore than data: there was no Scouting Combine in 1970, the sources disagree, Bradshaw has never addressed it, and his reputation traces to a 1979 insult from Hollywood Henderson rather than to any test.

Donovan McNabb belongs here without a number attached. Malcolm Gladwell, writing in The New Yorker in 2008, established that McNabb had the lowest Wonderlic of the five quarterbacks taken in the first round in 1999 and the best career of any of them. That is the more useful fact, and unlike the 14 that circulates, it has a byline.

Modern quarterback scores, for reference

Player	Draft year	Score	Reported by	Status
Patrick Mahomes	2017	24	Bob McGinn	Single named source
JaMarcus Russell	2007	24	John Lopez, Sports Illustrated	Single named source
Baker Mayfield	2018	25	Middlekauff leak via Bleacher Report	Single named source
Ryan Mallett	2011	26	Chris Mortensen, ESPN	Single named source
Peyton Manning	1998	28	David Goldenberg, Mental Floss	Single named source
Sam Darnold	2018	28	Middlekauff leak via Bleacher Report	Single named source
Josh Rosen	2018	29	Middlekauff leak via Bleacher Report	Single named source

Mahomes at 24 and Russell at 24 is the row that should end the argument about what these numbers predict. One is a multiple MVP. The other is one of the most cited draft busts in league history. Same score.

Wonderlic scores by NFL position, and why the table is forty years old

Search for NFL Wonderlic scores by position and you will find the same figures on dozens of sites, presented as current data. They are reproduced accurately. The problem is the date: the commonly cited version traces to a single source, Paul Zimmerman's The New Thinking Man's Guide to Pro Football, published by Simon and Schuster in 1984. The numbers predate the modern Combine, and almost none of the sites republishing them say so.

Position	Reported average	Why the role might score this way
Offensive tackle	26	Complex protection calls
Center	25	Identifies defensive fronts before the snap
Quarterback	24	Widest spread, from single digits to the high 40s
Guard	23	Protection-heavy interior role
Tight end	22	Blocking plus route responsibilities
Safety	19	Coverage communication and disguise
Linebacker	19	Run fits and coverage checks
Cornerback	18	Reaction-driven, isolated assignments
Wide receiver	17	Route running over scheme reading
Fullback	17	Niche role in the modern game
Running back (halfback)	16	Vision and reaction over recall

The pattern surprises people: offensive linemen, not quarterbacks, top the list. Read it as a snapshot of a 1980s league, not as a current benchmark, and remember that individuals varied widely inside every group.

What an NFL Wonderlic score would mean in normal hiring

This is the conversion nobody publishes, and the only reason these numbers matter to anyone who is not a football fan. On the classic scale, one point per correct answer, here is where each score sits.

Read the NFL numbers against that scale and most of them stop looking remarkable. A 24, the figure reported for Mahomes, sits in the 55th to 80th percentile band and would clear the typical minimum for nursing, sales and most administrative roles. A 20 is the midpoint. Even a 16 is inside the ordinary range, not an outlier.

One caveat on the average, because it is misquoted constantly. The 20 to 21 figure traces to ESPN Page 2, Jeff Merron, in February 2002, and it describes the applicant pool, not the general population. Wonderlic's own candidate FAQ now says there is no universal "good" or "average" score for Wonderlic Select, because the current product scores you against the demands of a specific job rather than reporting one 0 to 50 number.

How a 48 or a 4 compares with people practising today

NFL numbers are leaks from a tiny, unusual group. For a present-day yardstick, our PrepClubs Research series re-grades every scored attempt on our Wonderlic-format practice forms, 50 questions in 12 minutes (What candidates actually score on aptitude practice tests).

• The median practising candidate scores 26 out of 50 (52%).
• The 90th percentile is 37 out of 50 (74%).
• The 10th percentile is 15 out of 50 (30%).

On that scale, Fitzpatrick's reported 48 is far beyond the top tenth of our practice attempts, and Claiborne's reported 4 sits well below the bottom tenth. These are raw scores on PrepClubs practice forms, not official Wonderlic scores, and people who practise are a self-selected group, so treat them as a yardstick, not a norm table.

The detail in Fitzpatrick's story that matters most for everyone else is that he reportedly finished in nine minutes. Most people do not finish at all. Our practising candidates left 20% of a Wonderlic-format paper blank on average, rising to 56% of the final fifth (How much of a timed aptitude test is never answered). A 40-plus score is mostly a story about reaching the last ten questions.

Try three questions from a real Wonderlic-format paper

These come from PrepClubs Wonderlic Practice Test 8, the newest form in our bank. Time yourself: the whole test allows about 14 seconds a question.

Question 20 of 50. A store has 300 staff. 60% of them work part time. Of those part timers, 25% are students. How many staff are student part timers?

A) 30 B) 120 C) 75 D) 180 E) 45

Answer: E) 45. Part timers are 60% of 300, which is 180. A quarter of 180 is 45. The 180 option is the trap for anyone who stops one step early.

Question 22 of 50. How many of these five pairs are exact duplicates?

1. 141932 / 411932
2. 5284704 / 5284704
3. 7129284 / 7129284
4. 86609 / 86690
5. 28347 / 28347

A) 0 B) 1 C) 2 D) 3 E) 4

Answer: D) 3. Pairs 2, 3 and 5 match. Pair 1 swaps the first two digits and pair 4 swaps the last two. Compare character by character; reading the numbers as whole values is how the swaps slip past.

Question 40 of 50. How many zeros are at the end of 10 factorial (10!)?

A) 5 B) 2 C) 3 D) 4 E) 1

Answer: B) 2. Each trailing zero needs a factor of 10, which is 2 times 5. There are plenty of 2s, so count the 5s: 5 and 10 give one each, so there are two zeros. 10! is 3,628,800.

For more worked items by question type, see our Wonderlic practice test walkthroughs.

Those three are a small slice of the 50. To find where you actually lose points under the clock, run a full timed set with worked explanations on a free real-format Wonderlic practice test, then cross-check the question styles against the official Wonderlic sample questions so nothing on test day is new.

Why the NFL dropped the Wonderlic, and what replaced it

The league stopped administering the test before the 2022 Combine. It was first reported on 5 January 2022 from a memo to clubs obtained by the Associated Press and carried the same day by Sports Illustrated and CBS Sports. The memo framed the change as part of a package of pre-draft reforms requiring that prospects be "afforded a respectful and professional NFL environment." Troy Vincent, the NFL's executive vice president of football operations, described it as part of "an overall audit of all of the assessments." The New York Times reported in March 2022 that the test "has been criticized for racial bias."

Three problems had stacked up.

• Weak prediction. A 2005 study by McDonald Mirabile in The Sport Journal, covering 84 drafted quarterbacks from 1989 to 2004, found no statistically significant link between Wonderlic score and college passing performance, and no evidence that higher scorers were paid more in the NFL.
• Bias concerns. Researchers and players argued the test carried racial and socioeconomic bias, the same critique aimed at many general cognitive tests.
• Integrity. Agents obtained forms of the test and drilled clients on them before the Combine, so for prepared prospects the score measured memory of the forms as much as raw reasoning.

The league adopted no single formal replacement. Many teams moved to S2 Cognition, a 40 to 45 minute exam of reaction speed, tracking and decision-making, graded across nine segments. Per The Athletic, roughly 15 of the 32 clubs were under contract with S2 as of 2023, and it runs at pro days, all-star games and team visits rather than at the Combine itself. The NFL's own Player Assessment Tool is separate: it was introduced at the 2013 Combine alongside the Wonderlic, not as a response to dropping it.

The leak pipeline moved with the new test. In April 2023, S2 percentiles for the top quarterback class leaked to The Athletic, and S2 co-founder Brandon Ally said the list was partly wrong: "the list of scores that I have seen, two of those scores are not accurate." Darren Rovell of ESPN, who had published leaked Wonderlic scores himself, publicly recanted the practice in 2017 after taking the real test and scoring 26, arguing that readers lack the context to interpret the numbers.

What the NFL's exit means if you face the Wonderlic for a job

It is tempting to read the NFL's decision as proof that cognitive testing does not work. That is the wrong lesson. The league's complaint was narrow: one general 12-minute score, used as a gate and never validated against playing quarterback or cornerback, did not predict the specific job.

Corporate hiring is different. General cognitive ability remains one of the better-validated predictors of performance across many roles, which is why Wonderlic still sells the test to employers. The current Wonderlic Select pairs the 12-minute cognitive section with untimed motivation and personality sections and scores the result against the role. If a real employer has sent you an invitation, the number that matters is the cutoff for your job family, not what a quarterback scored in 1983. The role-by-role cutoffs lay those out, from about 17 for security roles to 30 and up for chemists and analysts.

If you are the one sitting the 50-in-12 format, pace it like this:

• Budget about 14 seconds a question. You should be near question 25 when six minutes have passed.
• Never stall. If a question is not cracking inside 20 seconds, mark your best guess, note it, and move on.
• There is no penalty for a wrong answer, so leave nothing blank. With about a minute left, put an answer on every item you have not reached.
• Expect the back half to get harder and to mix topics. Reaching 30 to 40 questions with high accuracy beats racing to 50 and dropping easy marks.

FAQ

Who has the highest Wonderlic score in NFL history?

Pat McInally, a Harvard-educated punter drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals in 1975, is the only player publicly known to have scored a perfect 50. Because the league never released scores, "publicly known" is the accurate phrasing rather than "the only."

What QB has the highest Wonderlic score?

Ryan Fitzpatrick at 48 is the highest reported for a quarterback. NYJets.com reports he finished in nine minutes and left one question blank. Greg McElroy's 43, then Eli Manning's and Justin Herbert's 39, follow.

What QB has the lowest Wonderlic score?

Vince Young's reported 6 is the lowest quarterback figure in circulation, but it is disputed: an NFL spokesman called it inaccurate, Charley Casserly contested it on the record, Sports Illustrated lists him at 15, and a 16 on a retake is widely repeated. Jeff George at 10, sourced to Sports Illustrated, is the lowest quarterback score with a clean single-source attribution.

What did Tom Brady score on the Wonderlic?

The number that circulates is 33. It does not carry a named outlet in the sourced record, so treat it as unsourced rather than fact. That is true of a surprising share of the scores attached to famous players.

Which NFL position has the highest Wonderlic average?

Offensive tackles, at 26, followed by centers at 25 and quarterbacks at 24, in the commonly cited table. Running backs are lowest at 16. That table dates to a 1984 book, so treat it as historical.

Are NFL Wonderlic scores official?

No. The league never released them, and Roger Goodell's 2012 memo classified them as strictly confidential for club use. Every published figure is a leak, which is why corrections like Justin Herbert's real 39 never catch up with the wrong number.

Does the NFL still use the Wonderlic?

No. The test was dropped before the 2022 Combine. Many teams now use S2 Cognition, which runs outside the Combine, and its scores have already started leaking too.

Did a high Wonderlic score predict NFL success?

Not in any reliable way. A 2005 study of 84 drafted quarterbacks found no significant link between Wonderlic score and college passing performance or NFL pay, and cases like Mahomes and JaMarcus Russell, both reported at 24, show why.

Is the Wonderlic still used by regular employers?

Yes. It is still sold in the same 50-questions-in-12-minutes format as the cognitive section of Wonderlic Select, alongside motivation and personality sections. See the Wonderlic score and cutoff guide for what employers look for.

Related on PrepClubs

• What is a good Wonderlic score: bands, cutoffs by job and IQ conversion
• Wonderlic practice test walkthroughs
• How to pass the Wonderlic test
• What a cognitive aptitude test is and why companies use it
• CCAT vs Wonderlic compared

Your score is not a leak. It is a number you can move.

If an employer is about to put you through the 50-in-12 format, the useful question is not what a quarterback scored decades ago. It is which question types are costing you points and how much of the paper you reach. PrepClubs has 8 full-length Wonderlic practice tests timed to the real format, with worked explanations for every item. If you do not pass your real test, the Pass Guarantee extends your access by 30 days at no cost.

Practice at prepclubs.com/tests/wonderlic.