40 yard times are very misleading

40 times are useless. It's all about the broad jump measurabled at the Combine. Now THAT'S an every play "football movement".
 
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40 times are useless. It's all about the broad jump measurabled at the Combine. Now THAT'S an every play "football movement".
Working from home today and this post inspired me to broad jump in my living room.
 
Corn's game speed- i.e. angles, reaction time, diagnosis, physicality, etc more than offsets what others have in straight line speed. MmThat's what these tests are telling the NFL, performance versus raw athleticism. Yes, on occasion there's a Matt Jones drafted off of a 40 time, but generally a super fast 40 isn't anything in isolation. In fact, running 4.2 without any TDs greater than 15 yards can work against a player. It means he can run 4.2, but not while trying to locate a ball, whereas a kid who runs a 4.2 but has never played with a draftable QB might be worth a closer look.


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40 times are useless. It's all about the broad jump measurabled at the Combine. Now THAT'S an every play "football movement".
Working from home today and this post inspired me to broad jump in my living room.

Early footage....

giphy.jpg
 
40 times are useless. It's all about the broad jump measurabled at the Combine. Now THAT'S an every play "football movement".
Working from home today and this post inspired me to broad jump in my living room.

Early footage....

View attachment 43461
First of all, I haven't eaten myself into a double chin yet. Second and most important, it's closer to this, considering I may pull my groin:


 
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I love Corn but that Cook play has become overblown. Cook isn't blinding fast and he's had hamstring problems for years.

I agree though 40 times rarely translate to success, especially since they have become so specialized.

Lol what does blinding fast mean? Few ppl have been fast enough to track him down once he hits open field.
 
40 times are important to an extent but its overrated in the since that running under 4.5 is a requirement to being a very good fb player.

Majority of the wrs and dbs in the nfl run slower than a 4.5 forty.
 
these 40's are ran in a very controlled environment after a few months of serious training for it.

maybe corn was slightly faster than cook when he ran him down on that one play? maybe cook was tired or had a slight injury or just wasnt in his best sprinting shape at that moment due to extolling more energy at the beginning of that play or the play before.

their 40's were .06 different i think? sometimes guys have that much difference in just the two 40's they run at the combine. werent njoku's two times at least that far off from one another?

Cook was holding a ball and Elder wasn't too.
 
40 times, like anything else , is just one part of many factors that can make you or break you. You need speed but it isn't end all be all. Obviously you want football players that can run if you want to win anything. If you have a college team full of 4.6 4.7 guys running 11.5 100m chances are your team will not be very good or at least not championship level
 
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I love Corn but that Cook play has become overblown. Cook isn't blinding fast and he's had hamstring problems for years.

I agree though 40 times rarely translate to success, especially since they have become so specialized.

Lol what does blinding fast mean? Few ppl have been fast enough to track him down once he hits open field.
He just ran a 4.5 at the combine. That's nothing crazy. He's a workhorse that's been constantly hampered by minor leg issues.

Really don't know what you're having trouble with but oh well.
 
The reaction to 40 times are pretty funny and formulaic.

If Corn ran a 4.4 it would be one of the first things people mention to justify him as a player. But since he ran a 4.55 - the 40 is misleading, a very small piece, or just pointless. Throw in a Jerry Rice, Emmitt Smith, etc. reference. I'm surprised Joe Haden hasn't come up in this thread yet.

I love Corn, and agree he plays faster than his 40 time - but there's no doubt that slower 40 time combined with his small size is going to hurt him.

Speed is never the only factor. But it's crazy to act like speed isn't an important factor - especially at the CB position.
 
Corn's just not fast enough. That 4.5 40 correlates to how bad he was.

He was constantly getting burned on long passes. Receivers would just blow by him.

Opposing offensive coordinators would lick their chops and gameplan ways to abuse him.

He could also never catch up to fast running backs. Guy never tracked down anyone.

I'll be surprised if he's even drafted.
 
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The reaction to 40 times are pretty funny and formulaic.

If Corn ran a 4.4 it would be one of the first things people mention to justify him as a player. But since he ran a 4.55

Exactly but hey..... some guys on this board think you can win with you're skill position players running 11.5 100m/ 4.6-4.7 40 speed lmfao
 
To say the forty is meaningless is kinda silly. It's not the end-all-be-all but it makes a difference in the evaluation of certain players. GM's and coaches need to know if a guy can truly run or not. It makes a difference in whether the kid can do what they'll ask him to do within their system. You're not gonna draft a CB who runs a 4.6 if you're in a division with elite WR's and you play a ton of man coverage. The game tape is obviously very important but it doesn't always tell the whole story. Maybe a CB played in a zone scheme in college or behind an elite pass rush and his lack of speed was hidden. You need to see what that kid runs.

The forty also allows GM's and coaches to find out something about a kid that they didn't know and helps certain kids move up (or down) their board. I can say that through personal experience as I (we) currently have a former player who's going through the process. Everybody thought our kid would be a Safety at the next level because they didn't know he could run well enough to play CB. He was being pegged as a 4.5 athlete. His stock is sky rocketing more and more as GM's/coaches find out that he's actually fast enough to play CB. Then you look at a kid like Tabor and it's the opposite. A 4.6 forty is going to hurt a CB that's only 6'0" 190lbs. I don't care how good of a "football player" you are.

Every DC's biggest worry is being beat vertically, allowing big plays. When a WR runs a vertical all that "good football player" **** goes right out the window. It's speed versus speed. And I don't care how good of a football player you are, a 4.5-4.6 ain't covering a 4.3 on a vertical unless he's got a 7+ yard head-start. (and now you're leaving the underneath routes wide open)

Every guy who gets paid to make personnel decisions think that forties matter. The only substitute for lack of speed is size.
EXAMPLE: A slower CB can find a spot in a Cover-3 scheme if he's 6'2".
EXAMPLE: A slower WR can still excel if he's big, can run routes and knows how to use body position.

Ain't no place in the NFL for small and slow, doesn't matter how good of a football player they are. And the few players you find who still excel with those deficiencies probably have some other elite traits. (foot speed, strength, etc) Hester only ran a mid-4.4 but his burst was elite and his vision was second to none.
 
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Yet we have drooling faulktards on this site that say that a track 100 time of 11.1 is slow, and that you can't have too many of those guys in the DB backfield and be good. These low IQ imbeciles are running Bandy down.

Corn is fast enough, has good instincts, takes good angles, comes up for the run and sticks his head in there, and tackles like a mothertrucker. Give me that please.

The problem is...

Throughout the whole country...

There's other guys who do those same things, only they're bigger and faster.
 
I don't think anybody believes "faster = better", but there's definitely a range of preference for each position.

There's no guarantee a Linebacker who runs a 4.4 is going to be better than one who runs a 4.7, but you'd like to have a Linebacker who's somewhere in that range. The higher that number gets (from 4.8) the less likely that guy is going to be able to excel.

RB - 4.3 to 4.5 is desirable (4.6 is an exception)
WR - 4.3 to 4.5 is desirable (4.6 if he's big and savvy)
CB - 4.3 to low 4.5 is desirable (4.6 if he's big and you run Cover-3)
Safety - 4.4 to high 4.5 is desirable (4.6 if he's a box Safety)
Linebacker - 4.5 to 4.7 is desirable (4.8 is an exception)
DL varies with position and scheme.

That's just how I see it. My opinion.

I think it just boils down to "is he fast enough to do what we need him to do?"
 
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I don't think anybody believes "faster = better", but there's definitely a range of preference for each position.

There's no guarantee a Linebacker who runs a 4.4 is going to be better than one who runs a 4.7, but you'd like to have a Linebacker who's somewhere in that range. The higher that number gets (from 4.8) the less likely that guy is going to be able to excel.

RB - 4.3 to 4.5 is desirable (4.6 is an exception)
WR - 4.3 to 4.5 is desirable (4.6 if he's big and savvy)
CB - 4.3 to low 4.5 is desirable (4.6 if he's big and you run Cover-3)
Safety - 4.4 to high 4.5 is desirable (4.6 if he's a box Safety)
Linebacker - 4.5 to 4.7 is desirable (4.8 is an exception)
DL varies with position and scheme.

That's just how I see it. My opinion.

I think it just boils down to "is he fast enough to do what we need him to do?"

Totally agree. There's a range of measurements you look for in each position - and the players Size & Speed have to be taken into account with each other.

A 6'1" 230 lb. RB running a 4.60 is much more impressive than a 5'10" 190 lb. RB running a 4.55. It's a sliding scale.

If you don't have speed, you better have size. And if you don't have size, you better have speed. At each level you go up - HS/College/Pro - the lack of size/speed/athleticism is more likely to get exposed.

Elder is small at 5'10" 183. If he ran a 4.45 a team could say let's put 5-10 more lbs. on him, and if his 40 drops to a 4.50 we're still fine. You can sacrifice some speed to gain some size. But at 4.55, there's no room to do that.

That's why for Elder and smaller CB's especially, a fast 40 time is crucial.
 
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