Smart guy, but can he read a defense?

In the words of too many announcers this past football season, Georgia’s Matt Stafford separated himself from the rest of the quarterback field in one key test of potential NFL draftees -- the Wonderlic intelligence test.

Out of a possible score of 50, Stafford scored 38 -- 10 points better than Mark Sanchez’s 28 and 11 better than Kansas State’s Josh Freeman. Stafford’s score was also better than some current pros of note. Tom Brady scored a 33, Drew Brees a 28 and Chad Pennington, a Rhodes Scholar finalist, a 25.

On the other end of the scale, wide receivers dominated. Michael Crabtree of Texas Tech scored a 15, Darrius Heyward-Bey of Maryland a 14, Percy Harvin of Florida a 12 and Hakeem Nicks of North Carolina an 11.

What does it all mean, in terms of projecting a successful NFL career? Put it this way: Brett Favre scored a 22 and Alex Smith a 40.

Trivia time

Who is the only player with a confirmed Wonderlic score of 50?

No low-bridging here

So, do Barack Obama’s friends go easy on him and let him win during the president’s famed pickup basketball games?

Obama recently told Jay Leno: “I don’t see why they would throw the game, except for all those Secret Service guys with guns around them . . . [though] I don’t think I get the hard fouls that I used to.”

This grass is entirely

legal everywhere

This season, the New York Yankees will roll out a new souvenir promotion that is dirt cheap: Yankees Sod.

According to the New York Times, officially licensed grass is about to be sold, in the form of sod or seeds, to fans who want a patch of their own.

“It’s just capitalizing on what we have and what we’ve done,” said Rick DeLea, vice president of DeLea Sod Farms, which his grandfather founded in 1928 and has supplied turf for Yankee Stadium since the 1960s.

“It’s going to be one of those ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ stories,” said David Andres, the entrepreneur who came up with the idea of selling sod and grass to fans.

Andres and his three partners have visions of selling Cubs Sod and Red Sox Sod, with Cubs Sod guaranteed to curse your backyard for decades to come.

Circus Circus atmosphere

The NHL is moving its annual awards show from Toronto to Las Vegas, prompting Vancouver comedian Torben Rolfsen to comment on the featured performers, “Siegfried and Patrick Roy.”

Trivia answer

Pat McInally, an All-American wide receiver at Harvard who punted and played wide receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals from 1976 to 1985.

And finally

“When Lance Mackey won his third straight Iditarod race from Anchorage to Nome the other day,” noted NBC’s Len Berman, he actually said: “ ‘There’s no place like Nome.’ ”

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mike.penner@latimes.com