I was intrigued by this little exercise in information display: a blogger who writes about information design took some data about the average IQ scores of football players, correlated it to their positions, then developed a visual display that quite clearly demonstrates which positions have the smartest players in a way that anyone who understands a football lineup can grasp. (via)

Even a quick glance at this graphic tells you that the smartest players on the field are the offensive linemen, especially guys who play the outside tackle position. Their average IQs are even higher than those of the quarterbacks, who have long been thought to be the real brains on a football team. OTs have to make many more quick reactions to the moves of the defensive players, which explains their higher intelligence. The position with the lowest average intelligence is the tailback, who usually just runs straight ahead with the football and gets clobbered.

He also links to this Sporting News article, which says that the offensive line for the New England Patriots collectively scored higher on their intelligence evaluations than the average score for all individuals taking the test, and outranking all the teams who made it to the conference championship games last season. Fat lot of good that did them on Super Bowl Sunday, but it’s nice to know that they’re a bunch of smart guys.