Forty times are bogus in the NFL
April 17, 200120
BY CLARK JUDGE
FOXSports.com
There is something that makes no sense to me, and, for once, it doesn't involve Mark Cuban. No, it's what I'm hearing about Michael Vick, the first choice in this weekend's draft. The word starting to make the rounds on the Virginia Tech quarterback is that he can run the 40 in less than 4.3 seconds.
I never saw Vick run a 40, and I wasn't at his workout at Virginia Tech. But one thing I can guarantee is this: Vick cannot run the 40 in under 4.3 seconds. Heck, he can't run it under 4.4, either.
That's not a knock on Vick. It's a knock on an NFL practice that is absolutely, positively out of whack. I'm talking about 40-yard dash times. They're the standard by which draft-eligible players are measured, and they're as reliable as UFO sightings.
Yet when the NFL begins its march of draftees on Saturday you're going to hear how one running back ran a 4.32, a wide receiver peeled off a 4.34 or some 350-pound lummox breezed through a 4.85. It makes for good copy. But so did Paul Bunyan.
"The only way to get a true 40-yard dash time is to get electronic timing where a man breaks a wire when he leaves the starting gate," said Buffalo's vice president in charge of player personnel, Dwight Adams. "The 40 is a common denominator in football, but it's blown way out of proportion. It's physically impossible to run a 4.2 and, probably, a 4.3."
Don't tell that to the guys holding stopwatches. I remember when Vance Johnson, then a wide receiver at the University of Arizona, ran the 40 in 4.19 seconds. At least that's what I was told. I guess Denver was, too, because the Broncos made him their second-round draft pick in 1985.
I also remember when Laveranues Coles, then a wide receiver at Florida State, was supposed to have run a 4.16. Nobody said anything about it being wind-aided, but it would have taken Hurricane Andrew to push him to a finish like that. The Jets media guide has him clocked at 4.29 last year, and there was no wind advisory there, either.
The NFL scouting combine has been using electronic timing since 1990, but that's one year after Deion Sanders set the standard against which all others are measured. Sanders ran a 4.29 in Prime Time, and nobody has beaten the mark since.
"You've got to take into consideration that most of these times are done with stopwatches," said San Diego State's Rahn Sheffield, coach of the women's track and field squad and a former track star himself. "A 4.2 really translates to a 4.4. When you hand time (dashes) it opens up room for human error. So when a Marshall Faulk runs a 4.33, it really equates to a 4.5."
All of which comes as no news to Adams, who for years has laughed off 40-yard dashes and vertical jumps and long jumps as insignificant measures of a football prospect's abilities. He's more interested in production, which makes a lot of sense to me . and anyone else who believes stopwatches weren't made for football.
Remember when Jerry Rice emerged from Mississippi Valley State in 1985? He was supposed to be too slow. Same with USC running back Marcus Allen. Yeah, well, I never saw a defensive back who could catch Rice from behind until he tore up his knee, and Allen's a lock for the Hall of Fame.
O.J. Simpson might have been the fastest back to play the game. Go ahead and make a case for Bo Jackson. Maybe Herschel Walker, too. But Simpson ran a leg on Southern Cal's 440-yard relay team, one that set a world record, and if he were in this year's draft he'd be the fastest running back by far; faster than Big-10 sprint champion Michael Bennett. Faster than LaDainian Tomlinson. Faster than Deuce McAllister.
Any idea what Simpson ran for a 40? I do. Try 4.5. If you don't believe him ask. He said it shortly after he left USC.
"I must've missed something here," said Adams. "I spent some time this spring with an Olympic sprinter, and we sat in a stadium together, watching guys work out and talking about how the 40-yard dash times were way overdone."
The sprinter was Dennis Mitchell. Yeah, THAT Dennis Mitchell. He and Adams were together at the University of Florida, and when they heard times of some of the guys they watched Mitchell said nothing. He just shook his head.
"He was a little shocked," said Adams. "Being a great sprinter, he'd never seen so many people running 4.1s and 4.2s. I've talked to (track coach) Brooks Johnson and others who say, 'You football people are way ahead of us.' Of course, they're facetious."
If Adams had his way, he'd rely more on times for shorter distances -- especially for offensive and defensive linemen. Make them stop running 40s and time them for 10s, maybe 20s. That's all they usually cover, anyway.
"I could see it," said Cleveland's vice president in charge of football operations, Dwight Clark. "But for running backs, wide receivers and defensive backs, I'd like to see the 40 stay."
The Browns don't rely on others' times. They clock prospects themselves, and if they don't, they don't have a record of them. The Browns never timed anyone at 4.2. They never timed anyone at 4.3, either, though they had the University of Arizona's Trung Canidate at 4.32 last year. I wasn't at that workout, either, but I know something was wrong.
And here's why. The fastest starter I ever saw was sprinter Ben Johnson, and at the 1988 Seoul Olympics track and field's fastest starter ran the 100 meters in a blistering 9.79 seconds, a time that later was disallowed after Johnson tested positive for steroids. Know how fast he covered the first 40? It was 4.69 seconds. Forty meters is approximately 44 yards, which means Johnson ran the first 40 in 4.26.
So, now, let's see if I have this straight: The chemically enhanced
Johnson, the fastest starter in track history, ran the fastest 100 in history . only it was one-tenth of a second slower than Laveranues Coles a year ago and three one-hundreths of a second ahead of Sanders' NFL combine record.
It makes you wonder. It makes you wonder why anyone believes this stuff.
"I look at guys like Mean Joe Greene and Steve Van Buren and wonder how many 4.3s those guys did," said Adams. "I think we've gotten to the point where we've overdone the clock workout."
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