You can block or tackle, or you can do some exotic things with a football cradled under your arm, but you're not the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to book learning.

2000, Tami Hoag, Ashes to Ashes, →ISBN, page 378:

2003,Lucille Bluth, Arrested Development, S:1 E:3 “And I know he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he's sensitive, Michael,”
“He fits in a lot of ways, but he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, is he?”
“Maybe he just plays it stupid so people expect less of him.”

[A] man who has lost every dollar he ever won–somewhere north of $US300 million ($370 million)–and done three years for rape is possibly not the sharpest knife in the drawer, nor the most likeable.

Intelligence = 1 / Title. The higher the level in the organization, the inversely less intelligent they are. Folk at the top have human skills and business savvy, but despite all the press, most are not the sharpest knives in the drawer—after all, that’s your job!

Not the sharpest knife in the drawer

Meaning

Noun

Synonyms