During the height of recruiting season, there is always a lot of discussion about 40 times and there are many comments made about guys who run above 4.5 as being too slow. I think the the NFL combine results coming out today should set a more reasonable guideline for acceptable 40 times. Here is a quick list of the best times run by some of the top RBs at the combine:
-Leonard Fournette - 4.51
-Dalvin Cook - 4.49
-Christian McCaffery - 4.48 (and he looked so much faster than that at Stanford)
-Samaje Perrine - 4.65
-Corey Clement - 4.68
-Wayne Gallman - 4.60
-Alvin Kamara - 4.56
That's a list of some of the top backs in this year's draft and only 2 of them ran under 4.5 (and just barely) and several were 4.6 or higher. And some of these guys looked like burners in games. I'm guessing we are going to see many of the top WRs running in the 4.5s as well.
The point is - 40 times are like urban legends. Guys aren't running sub 4.5s with any regularity and when you get laser-timed 40s at the big camps and you see guys running in the 4.6s, many of them are still plenty fast enough.
-Leonard Fournette - 4.51
-Dalvin Cook - 4.49
-Christian McCaffery - 4.48 (and he looked so much faster than that at Stanford)
-Samaje Perrine - 4.65
-Corey Clement - 4.68
-Wayne Gallman - 4.60
-Alvin Kamara - 4.56
That's a list of some of the top backs in this year's draft and only 2 of them ran under 4.5 (and just barely) and several were 4.6 or higher. And some of these guys looked like burners in games. I'm guessing we are going to see many of the top WRs running in the 4.5s as well.
The point is - 40 times are like urban legends. Guys aren't running sub 4.5s with any regularity and when you get laser-timed 40s at the big camps and you see guys running in the 4.6s, many of them are still plenty fast enough.
