Posted by ESPN.com's Pat Yasinskas
Earlier today, I posted an item on the often-weird behavior of wide receivers. In it, I cited the 1973 psychological profile performed by Dr. Arnold J. Mandell when he was team psychiatrist for the San Diego Chargers.
As previously pointed out, Mandell nailed the wide receiver profile, calling them attention seekers, among other things. Here are excerpts of Mandell's profiles for all positions:
DEFENSIVE ENDS
"Sloppy and casual about detail; relatively undisciplined; joy in attack; anti-social behavior with pride; joyful participation in needling humor."
DEFENSIVE TACKLES
"Unbridled wildness; sadistic joy in attacking structure; satirical humor; sloppy and casual about detail."
LINEBACKERS
"Good citizens, intelligent, killer impulses under control, will kill when given permission, not just for fun of it."
DEFENSIVE BACKS
"Hates structure, wants to destroy it. They do it more uninhibitedly up front; the farther back you get, the more guilty they are about it. May be lonely and alienated, even more depression-prone than linebackers."
WIDE RECEIVERS
"They are interested in looking pretty, being pretty. They are elegant, interpersonally isolated. Wide receivers don't group, they don't mob out. They are actors, uninflected about showing off, individualists, quite interested in their own welfare, their own appearance."
TIGHT ENDS
"The sum of the offensive line, but there's a lot of wide receiver in the tight end."
GUARDS
"Disciplined, tremendously interested in detail. Their anger is one of depression, stubbornness and persistence rather than violent outburst."
TACKLES
"Very much like the guard, but tends to be not quite as intellectual. Loyal, patient, honest and stubborn. Slower to anger and a little slower of thought and response."
CENTERS
"Intelligent, more volatile, affable and gregarious."
RUNNING BACKS
"Withdrawn and difficult to contact; anti-social and angry; paranoid and mistrustful; also playful."
QUARTERBACKS
"Has to perform fantastically well under pressure. Subtle nuances of anxiety and guilt have to be dampened out. Two dominant types are successful: the swashbuckling, don't-care people who are impulsive, grandiose, arrogant and limit-testers. And the hyper-religious, the calm of the believer, the chosen one."
