Most Important 40 Time from the Combine!!!!!

[John Galt?]

I agree. Like I said in another thread about 40 times for DEs: "if a DE has to run 40 yards to get to the QB, he is lining up wrong"

I think the Senior bowl and other all-star games are a much better guage of NFL talent. You get to watch how a player practices and preps for a game, how quickly he picks up new verbage and the playbook, and how he relates to new teammates. It is a lot easier for a player to shine for a couple minutes one day. In a week long practice the pretenders are exposed.

[Pteranodon]

Valid point but Chris Johnson wouldn't agree.

Neither would any of those teams timing all the players.

[pittbullbuc]

Chris Johnson ran at the old field, different surface, they talked about that yesterday

[buc5win]

Valid point but Chris Johnson wouldn't agree.

[SkoolFL]

NONE OF THEM! 

This is the most useless gauge of football ability ever!  The only way the 40 is useful is to gauge improvement in younger athletes over a break, to ensure they continue to work!

Tell me when a football player runs in track spikes, shorts, an UA shirt w/ no pads, with their head down most of the way, starting when they feel like it!

NEVER!

And we are separating them by tenths of seconds, this is retarded!  We might as well measure big toes if all we want is a number!
 [banghead] [banghead] [banghead] [banghead] [banghead] [banghead] [banghead] [banghead] [banghead]

[GameTime]

i wonder how perfect the QB has to throw the ball the make a difference in a 4.4 vs 4.6 receiver.  or how much a set of pads affects certain players.  or when the bench press ever comes into play on the field.

but it sure makes great entertainment. 

[John Galt?]

The 40 times really only make sense for RBs and WRs.

They'd make more sense if the track looked like this:

[bucjoe]

A couple of nights ago on NFL Access they were talking about the 40 times, and Gruden said he thought they should be timed in full pads.  I think he is right.

I'm a pretty old dude (67) and when I was in high school, the measure of speed was the 100 yard dash.  We had two halfbacks on our team who ran the 100 yard dash somewhere in the 10.5 range (at that time the world record was held by Dave Sime at 9.3, so that was pretty fast).  They used to race each other, and one of them was faster in shorts, and the other, who was more muscular, was faster in pads. 

YES, it is different when in pads, and I agree they should be timed that way.  They don't play in shorts, which is what Gruden said.

[bigbuc345]

The shuttle times are more important than the 40 in my opinion.

[SkoolFL]

Valid point but Chris Johnson wouldn't agree.

Neither would any of those teams timing all the players.

The NFL is a creature of habit!  The fact that everyone does it definitely does not validate anything, they all just follow blindly!  The fact that Chris Johnson is fast is visible with his pads on, when watching him run by everyone!  He never needed a 40 to show that!


I just dont get how it is justified!  It is perfect conditions, your wearing the most comfortable thing possible, you are well rested prior to running and they are wearing no pads, with no fear of being hit! 

Bench is pretty ridiculous too, but it at least shows if the player is in the weight room for the most part!  But there is a difference between being strong and having endurance, and there is no need for you muscles to work that long in football when a play lasts a few seconds!  Some people can push a lot of weight for short periods of time much easier than they can do repetition after repetition with no rest!

I understand the need to separate the players, but there should be some, more transferable skill that can be quantified!

[Simms2Clayton05]

A couple of nights ago on NFL Access they were talking about the 40 times, and Gruden said he thought they should be timed in full pads. I think he is right.

I agree with chucky. Some of these guys play faster when the pads are on.

[dalbuc]

You have to have an objective measure. Saying, "a guy looks fast" doesn't mean anything since for example: Chris Johnson looked fast....against CUSA defenses. What does that really mean, how fast is he. Beanie Wells looks fast in the Big 10, again, so what.

When you measure you are getting an even baseline. How you use that and use it wisely are up to the teams but you'd be a sucker to try and figure out how fast or strong or quick a guy in relation to the other players you are trying to evaluate off tape given variable conditions and foes.

In the end what you want to see a fast player on tape and see that he runs fast on the stopwatch. That confirms what you saw.