ST. LOUIS, Mo.  Orlando Pace, left tackle for the St. Louis Rams, didn't realize something was missing from his life until last night.

Orlando Pace:  Huge Alvin Ailey fan.

"I was switching back and forth between Masterpiece Theatre on PBS and Alvin Ailey on Bravo when I stumbled onto an NFC playoff game," says the seven-time Pro Bowl selection.  "All of a sudden it hit me--I should have been playing football," he says as he fires up a homemade particle accelerator he uses to barbecue ribs with the heat generated by collisions between quarks and gluons.

"Stand not upon the order of your going, but go at once!"

The Rams are the NFL's smartest team based on their collective performance on the Wonderlic Personnel Test, a standardized exam given at the NFL Scouting Combine to college football players who hope to make the pros. Despite that surfeit of grey matter, the team ended up last in the weak NFC West Division with a record of 2-14.

"Dante--Ezra Pound--Canto I, Canto II--hut!"

The Wonderlic exam includes questions such as: "Rope is selling for $.10 a foot, and Bob is on a train traveling 60 miles an hour from Kansas City to St. Louis.  You should be in: (a) a seven-man front, (b) a nickel defense with a Cover 2, or (c) a basic 4-3 alignment with RE and RT stunting."

Jim Haslett, head coach of the Rams, says the team's IQ sometimes gets in the way of its performance on the field.

"I told the guys to suck it up in training camp, we had a shot at a wildcard spot," Haslett said with disgust, "but no, they'd rather play chess and conjugate irregular French verbs."

Cuthbertson's Irregular French Verb Wheel

"Don't blame me," said free safety Oshiomogho Atogwe as he looked up over a paperback copy of Jorge Luis Borges' Ficciones.  "Our playbook is bo-ring."

Borges:  "The wind from the east is weak--we'll receive!"

Among the teams with lesser intellectual gifts who made the playoffs were the Philadelphia Eagles, who missed the playoffs entirely last year.  The Eagles' coaching staff credits a top-to-bottom overhaul of the team's learning environment.

"The guys were listening to 'Hooked on Phonics' and Beethoven's late quartets in the locker room," says Rory Segrest, special teams coordinator. "We bought some heavy metal and alternated it with Jessica Simpson, and I guess you'd have to say it worked." The Eagles beat Minnesota 26-14 in their wild card game last week to advance to the divisional playoff today. "You don't run routes like we did that day if you're MENSA material," notes Segrest, referring to the high-IQ membership organization.

Rams' coach Haslett says the problem with this year's St. Louis squad is common among intellectuals.  "They're like a bunch of absent-minded professors," he notes.  "They know which sonnet of Shakespeare has the 'bare ruined choirs' line in it, but they can't remember where they put their car keys."

La'Roi Glover:  "Coach--he hit me in the apostrophe!"

La'Roi Glover, a defensive tackle, was unapologetic.  "We are on the verge of incredible breakthroughs in nanotechnology, and all Haslett wants to talk about is blitz packages." Glover blamed the Rams coaching staff for the team's poor performance this year. "I told coach to put 'Make playoffs' on his to-do list, but he went and stuck it in a copy of a stupid Danielle Steel novel. Once you drop that in the library book return, some other knucklehead will check it out and you'll never see it again."

Rams' management said they may de-emphasize their reliance on the Wonderlic test next season and draft players based on athletic rather than cognitive skills.  "Kurt Warner is the kinda player we need," said Haslett, referring to the two-time MVP who has led the Arizona Cardinals to a spot in the NFC championship game next Sunday with 33-13 win over the Carolina Panthers last night.

"Basically, Kurt's a snake-handling religious nut," Haslett pointed out.  "After every game he's telling reporters God made him throw for 300 yards, three touchdowns and no picks.  Maybe he wasn't the brightest bulb on the scoreboard, but he got us to the Super Bowl twice."

 A slightly different version of this article first appeared in Flak Magazine.