NFL Combine Results?

Training Powerlifting
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How can you say few of these guys have a legitimate shot in track and field? These guys specifically train for football and are blazing fast. I’ve seen Jamaal Charles at the Big XII Track and Field Championships and he’s at the elite level in the 100 and quite a few guys are out sprinting him here and they aren’t even training for track like him.

The simple fact is, these players have just as much athletic ability as world class sprinters and if they trained specifically for it, a lot of them could compete. Maybe not win, but definitely compete.

Some people are trying to make it seem like these NFL prospects aren’t even in the same league and I think that’s just as insulting to them as the inflated 40 times are to world class sprinters.

They’re all fast, sprinters are faster, it’s what they do. The NFL combine times are inflated, how much so is pure conjecture.

I do find it pretty suspect that people running these blazing speeds aren’t jumping out of the gym either. No one with over a 40" vertical and times like THAT?

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And I’m predicting Long is going number 1 or 2, definitely won’t be around at number 5.

1.Long
2.McFadden
3. ?

43

Big black ran a 4.47 and plays D-LINE !!!

44

[quote]triple-10sets wrote:
Big black ran a 4.47 and plays D-LINE !!![/quote]

I just saw that, and he might be the third to go. Quarterbacks, Right Ends, and really good O-Linemen are the franchise starting players.

45

[quote]Wordwreckin wrote:
I do find it pretty suspect that people running these blazing speeds aren’t jumping out of the gym either. No one with over a 40" vertical and times like THAT? [/quote]

I heard they changed the testing procedure for the VJ this year and were EXTREMELY strict when measuring standing reach.

Craziest stat I heard from the combine:
McFadden 4.27 33" Vert???

People are comparing DMac’s combine to AP’s, but AP jumped like 38" +

46

[quote]Wordwreckin wrote:
How can you say few of these guys have a legitimate shot in track and field? These guys specifically train for football and are blazing fast. I’ve seen Jamaal Charles at the Big XII Track and Field Championships and he’s at the elite level in the 100 and quite a few guys are out sprinting him here and they aren’t even training for track like him.

The simple fact is, these players have just as much athletic ability as world class sprinters and if they trained specifically for it, a lot of them could compete. Maybe not win, but definitely compete.

Some people are trying to make it seem like these NFL prospects aren’t even in the same league and I think that’s just as insulting to them as the inflated 40 times are to world class sprinters.

They’re all fast, sprinters are faster, it’s what they do. The NFL combine times are inflated, how much so is pure conjecture.

I do find it pretty suspect that people running these blazing speeds aren’t jumping out of the gym either. No one with over a 40" vertical and times like THAT? [/quote]

Good post. Your point about verts is a good one. It shows one of two things: That the 40 times are inflated or that a 35" vertical is actually quite extreme and that true 40" verticals are more rare than people think.

47

350×944 38.5 KB

Great discussions here T-Men, but let’s not get too f’philosophical.

Wouldn’t you agree that sometimes numbers don’t mean shit, when it comes to performance on the field it’s the heart that matters.

Case in Point 1:

Reggie Bush - Great combine stats, yet the only hole he’s been hitting hard in 2007 is the above.

What a waste talent, F’you Reggie!

48

Case in Point #2.

Which Combine Freak is the better NFL QB?

QB#1. 4.61 40, 35.5 Vertical, 9’9" Broad Jump

QB#2. 5.02 40, 30" Vertical, 8’9’’ Broad Jump

49

[quote]eic wrote:
Tedro,

First, there’s no need to go around calling everyone in a thread an “idiot” who disagrees with you. That doesn’t help anything and I’d appreciate it if you kept your cool.
[/quote]

Believe me, I have kept my cool. When somebody with no knowledge of sprinting feels qualified to discuss the topic, they are an idiot.

Source? A ‘strong’ correlation is relative. My point is that the correlation between 40y times and 100m times is much closer than 40y times and vertical.

You are making the assumption that the fastest guys are the best football players. Time and again this is shown to be untrue.

The other thing that everyone here keeps forgetting is the conditions in which the 40’s were run. If a few of these were running these times in track conditions, I would be more inclined to believe them. But these times are run in the RCA Dome, out of a 3-point stance.

You are right, but you are also trying to make the jump from “higher levels of performance” to world record speed. While more people may be running SLIGHTLY faster, the WR in the 100m only dropped .02s in 19 years. Powell recently knocked another .03 off of that. In addition, the number of guys running sub 10’s has gone up in a linear fashion, not exponentially as your theory would suggest.

[quote]
Now, I’ll agree that the NFL guys’ times are probably a tad inaccurate due to timing errors, etc. But in light of the sheer number of athletes we’re talking about and their access to better training methods, I am not at all surprised that these guys may be in the same neighborhood as Ben Johnson in the first 40 yards. [/quote]

Again, you are failing to recognize the conditions. If somebody said Ben Johnson ran these times at the RCA Dome I wouldn’t believe that either. You also do not know what “fast” is. A legit 4.3 40 is amazing, and not something that dozens of college football players are going to approach or surpass every year.

50

[quote]Wordwreckin wrote:
How can you say few of these guys have a legitimate shot in track and field? These guys specifically train for football and are blazing fast. I’ve seen Jamaal Charles at the Big XII Track and Field Championships and he’s at the elite level in the 100 and quite a few guys are out sprinting him here and they aren’t even training for track like him.

The simple fact is, these players have just as much athletic ability as world class sprinters and if they trained specifically for it, a lot of them could compete. Maybe not win, but definitely compete.

Some people are trying to make it seem like these NFL prospects aren’t even in the same league and I think that’s just as insulting to them as the inflated 40 times are to world class sprinters.

They’re all fast, sprinters are faster, it’s what they do. The NFL combine times are inflated, how much so is pure conjecture.

I do find it pretty suspect that people running these blazing speeds aren’t jumping out of the gym either. No one with over a 40" vertical and times like THAT? [/quote]

Jamaal Charles ran his best 100, 10.26, as a freshman in college. As he has gained football weight, his times have gotten slightly worse. A 10.26 is very fast, but we are talking half a second behind world class times. There is a big difference between world class speed and being able to compete at the college level.

Marcus Pugh won the 60m at the 2007 Big 12 Indoor Championship with a 6.68, .3 off of world record speed. He won the 100 at the outdoors with a 10.3, charles was second with a 10.32, both with a 2.3 m/s, beyond the legal limit.

So I agree with your statement “They’re all fast, sprinters are faster, it’s what they do.” But you need to add that world class sprinters are considerably faster than competitive college sprinters.

51

[quote]eic wrote:

I think this is an important point that speaks volumes. If a 100 meter specialist like Ben Johnson has such an untouchable 40 yard time, then why do guys like Charles get smoked at the 40 by guys who, to my knowledge, Charles would smoke in the 100 meters? Is it because while the 40 might favor a SLIGHTLY different athlete than the 100 meters? Again, SLIGHTLY?!?!? In fact, who was the last 100 meter guy who dominated in the 40? I cannot remember.
[/quote]

Nobody races in a 40. Most track guys have never even run a timed 40. You are downplaying the acceleration of these guys, which is a crucial part of the 100m.

[quote]
If I’m right, we would find that the disparity would grow the longer the track even we compare it to. I’d expect a fairly close, but not perfect, correlation between the 40 and 100 m, much less between the 40 and 200 m, even less between the 40 and 400 m, and so on. Of course, this is exactly what you’d find.[/quote]

You make no point. We are comparing the 40y times to the times of elite 100m sprinters, not 200m or 400m guys.

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[quote]duck_dodger23 wrote:
Wordwreckin wrote:
I do find it pretty suspect that people running these blazing speeds aren’t jumping out of the gym either. No one with over a 40" vertical and times like THAT?

I heard they changed the testing procedure for the VJ this year and were EXTREMELY strict when measuring standing reach.

Craziest stat I heard from the combine:
McFadden 4.27 33" Vert???

People are comparing DMac’s combine to AP’s, but AP jumped like 38" +

[/quote]

I have heard that too about the VJ. It certainly is possible. Every other year there were several 40"+'s and you aren’t seeing that this year.

To put VJ’s in perspective, a 6’3" WR with an alleged 45" vert would be able to hit his head on the rim from the standstill. There’s probably not a human being in the world who can do that so those 45" verts aren’t quite that high.

Most people have no real context for a vert. At 6’3" I have a legit 33" (measuring head height) vert and could step into any dunk contest short of the NBA and acquit myself very well.

The NBA combine vert has always been much more accurate because standing reach is measured with one hand and since “length” is prized so much you don’t see a single player holding back on the reach test like they are coached for at the NFL combine. At the NBA combine it is very rare to see a 40" vert and now the NFL combine is starting to reflect that.

53

[quote]TKOWKD1 wrote:
Great discussions here T-Men, but let’s not get too f’philosophical.

Wouldn’t you agree that sometimes numbers don’t mean shit, when it comes to performance on the field it’s the heart that matters.

Case in Point 1:

Reggie Bush - Great combine stats, yet the only hole he’s been hitting hard in 2007 is the above.

What a waste talent, F’you Reggie!

[/quote]

I’d grease that thing up like a turkey before it goes in the oven !!!

54

[quote]tedro wrote:
Believe me, I have kept my cool. When somebody with no knowledge of sprinting feels qualified to discuss the topic, they are an idiot. [/quote]

Still doesn’t justify name calling.

[quote] Earlier I commented on the 40 and verticals and you said there is not a very strong correlation. I respectfully disagree. I recall reading a study which showed that the VJ had an extremely strong correlation with 40 yard dash times.

Source? A ‘strong’ correlation is relative. My point is that the correlation between 40y times and 100m times is much closer than 40y times and vertical. [/quote]

Here is the study. It shows a .76 correlation between the VJ and a college football player’s 40 time. http://www.iowaahperd.org/journal/predicting_40yard.html

Do you have a source for your contention that there is a closer correlation between 100 meter times and the 40 yard dash, or are you just going off the fact that both the 100 and 40 are sprinting events. If so, then you must also accept the fact that both the 200 and 40 are sprinting events and yet even you wouldn’t be surprised to see 40 times at the combine which are better than those of elite 200 meter sprinters.

Also, you keep bringing up the conditions, but no one is saying that guys are routinely beating BJ’s time. He ran it in just over 4.2 right? Like 4.27? The faster combine times are around 4.3. Factor in the timing issues we all concede an you’re looking more at 4.4. So these guys are running about .13 seconds slower than BJ, but without blocks, no spikes, no tailwind and on turf. Okay, but those things–blocks, spikes, turf–all diminish in importance the shorter the event (this is science).

You could probably run 10 yards on turf in cleats nearly as fast as 10 yards in spikes on a track. The difference would be extremely small. That is what is going on with the forty, in my estimation. It is not long enough for the different conditions to have a very significant impact and is perhaps worth the .13 difference in the times.

And for the last time, elite sprinters in the 100 meters must have a mix of excellent explosiveness/acceleration, top speed, and speed endurance. They train accordingly. A football player needs only the first attribute–explosiveness/acceleration–and trains accordingly.

Therefore, the question comes down to this: Do you believe that each year our country of 1/3 of a billion people can produce 10-20 weightroom warriors who can match or come close to Ben Johnson’s acceleration and explosiveness (note I did NOT say top speed) over a very short sprint of 40 yards? Obviously you do not, but I don’t think it is so clearly impossible like you do.

55

[quote]tedro wrote:
To clarify:

The 40-times may be precise, but they are not accurate.

The combine has three timers. Two are completely hand timed, one is started by hand and stopped electronically. We don’t even know which time they are giving us, or if it is an average of all three. As pointed out hand-timind saves about 2 tenths, obviously the clock that is stopped electronically will be less. Also, the time is started at movement, which doesn’t really matter for comparison between athletes.

Now, to put things in context. Ben Johnson, who ran a 9.79 100m 20 years ago, rand that first 40 yards in 4.38 seconds. Let’s assume a .15 reaction time, which is actually on the slower side for an athlete of his caliper, you typically see times closer to .12. He’s now at 4.23. Mind you he also ran through 60 meters that day in 6.37, which would be a world record still today.

4.23! Ben Johnson. With track spikes. Out of blocks. On a fast track. And a tail wind. In the Olympic finals. En route to a World Record. With a little stanazolol to boot. 4.23.

Now you’re going to tell me that Darren Mcfadden, at the RCA dome, on field turf, with no wind, in football cleats or cross trainers, ran a 4.27?

I don’t think so.[/quote]

Might want to check your “context.” Ben Johnson ran a 3.7 hand timed (timed by his coach Charlie Francis). What makes you think because he ran 40 yards in a certain time at Seoul, his fastest 100m time, that’s as fast as he can run 40 yards? Highly doubtful.

And it’s correct to take away his reaction time to the gun, but you didn’t factor in the reaction time of starting the clock once the athlete moves, which is what happens in a 40.

charliefrancis.com/community/showthread.
php?t=6899&highlight=ben+johnson+40

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3.7 ??? God-Daaaaaaaaayyum. They need to put football pads on that sucka !!!

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[quote]eic wrote:
masonator wrote:
i think the combine has a little too much emphasis placed on it. Jerry rice routinely ran 4.7 40’s (unacceptable) but, until this season, held the single-season touchdown record. on the other end of the spectrum, reggie bush ran a 4.3 40 and BP’d 225 over 20 times, but so far he hasnt done shit.

To be honest, I think saying Reggie hasn’t done shit is a little too harsh. He has definitely failed to meet expectations, but that is due in large part to the fact that the expectations were astronomical. He has made some meaningful contributions at times, especially in 2006. Bush is definitely not a conventional NFL RB and when the Saints lost Deuce, they became one-dimensional. Their ENTIRE offense suffered as a result, not just Bush.

Frankly, I think they ought to convert Bush to a PR/KR/WR. Bush could be a sick receiver similar to a guy like Steve Smith. But even if they keep him as a little scat back to compliment Deuce, he should have a much better year in 2008 assuming the O stays healthy. In short, he has failed to live up to the hype, but I wouldn’t say he was a draft “bust.” [/quote]

Bush is a good player but he is a definite bust because of the high draft position/money spent on him. You need more than a “good” player out of that draft position.

58

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Bush is a good player but he is a definite bust because of the high draft position/money spent on him. You need more than a “good” player out of that draft position.

[/quote]

I guess I can’t really disagree, but I’m holding out for one more season before I call it. If he tanks this season, too, then he is a total bust.

59

i think we are agreeing on the same things, those that are arguing about the football 40 yard dash times and the elite sprinter 40 yard times. yes as the distnace gets longer the elite sprinter separets themselves even more from the football player. with that said, i think some of these football guys could knock some time off the 100 just by training for it. they lack speed and special endurance.

knowing this, would lead me to believe that at 40 yards it would be even closer than the 60 meter times, of which are fairly close to elite sprinters. C.J. spiller is a legit NFL prospect for clemson and he ran a 6.58 60 meter (hasnt touched the time since but you get my point), nobody in the world this year has run under 6.5. where do you think spiller would be at 40 in relation to some of these guys.

as a former sprinter i hated the football guys, but after seeing them time and time again come off of football season, do a few block starts and run a few meets, i had to come to the realization that these SOB’s are freakin fast, and it kills me to say it. could mcfadden run a 6.6 60 meter, his 40y would indicate that there is a good chance. the guy who ran a 4.2x at the combine, probably a 6.6 guy too give or take a .1. over 100 meters he would be more than likely .5 second back of elite sprinters.

AC

60

I ran track for 12 years and played football in HS. Let me give my 2 cents (its not worth much but i’m giving it cause I can).

First I was 5’8 160lb in HS.
Best 100 I ever ran was 10.96 in a meet.
Best 200 was 23.1
Best 400 was 50.1
I long jumped 22feet 7 inches
Best hand timed 40 in full gear was 4.55

Now that said I had great starting speed but I didn’t have a great top end speed. In meets I’d blow alot of people out of the blocks but get passed around the 60-70 mark. Some of these guys ran 10.6-10.8 and the crazy thing is those .2 - .4 seconds was a HUGE distance in a foot race.

I"ll be honest I didn’t focus alot on sprinting speed. I polevaulted and as some high school polevaulters we sometimes slacked off on our training, working on our tans on the pits. I got pimped by my coach to run the other events for points in track meets.

I had alot of fellow football/track friends who were very fast and the majority of it was not only being able to start fast but to have a fast top speed. We had a quarterback who went to stanford for Track and Field who ran 10.6ish 100’s and 47ish 400’s. He ran 40’s in the 4.4’s with a hand watch. He was fast getting out and he was VERY fast in the top speed. He’d hand off 20+yard leads in the 4x400 being our first leg.

So I do believe that there are some similarities to guys in track and in football speed wise there are so many little things that play into it also.

Full gear vs no gear and some good shoes.
Starting blocks vs 3 point stances
Timer starting when you move vs a gun shot.

Starting with full gear vs no gear, there is a less weight, more ability to move freely and even wind resistence (provided your not in a dome) that can hurt your time.

Starting blocks vs a 3 point stance, you can generate so much more power out of a starting block and have less chances of stumbling (imho when you know what your doing) then in a 3 point stance. Lower to the ground, better angles… its all here.

Time starting when you move vs a gun shot, i mean this thing is huge. Some guys try to ‘guess’ the time to go vs a gun shot and lose, some win. Some just react very fast but still lose precious time. Now if you had everyone in a meet run solo where it digitally tracked when they started and when they finished I think we’d be amazed at some of the times. Its a huge advantage to prepare yourself the right time to ‘spring’ into action vs holding holding holding go…

Again its my 2 cents, and my experience. Feel free to flame or whatever.