I recently ran into a video of Buffalo Bills wide receiver and Olympian Marquise Goodwin running the 60 meter sprint at the Milrose Games earlier this year. (Side note: Goodwin finished 10th in the long jump at the London Games, and tried out again in 2016, but failed to make the USA Olympic team) Of course, that race was won by Andre De Grasse in a time of 6.61s, while Goodwin finished 6th with a time of 6.68. Goodwin had a lead on De Grasse over the first 20m, after which De Grasse clawed back to win it. Not that it's surprising to hear that professional sprinters pulled on a football player after the first few meters.
But nonetheless, it got me thinking. Marquise Goodwin did not intend to leave the NFL to be an Olympian, and hence, he did not have a track coach training him. He was working with a strength and conditioning coach at the Buffalo Bills' facilities. The men he ran against were all professional sprinters, who had been training specifically to run the 60, 100 and 200 meter sprints for years. Goodwin has been spending his time focused on catching passes and running precise routes. And yet, Andre De Grasse, the man who won the bronze medal in the 100m in Rio only put 0.07s on him over 60 meters.
Admittedly, Goodwin was as fast or faster than anyone out there for the first 30 meters, after which the sprinters showed Goodwin why they are sprinters and he plays in the NFL. And I'm sure that De Grasse would have put another 0.43s on Goodwin if the race had been over 100m, assuming De Grasse was in 10.0x shape at the time, to beat the wide receiver by 0.50s. Goodwin ran a 10.57 100m in Atlanta in 2016.
So if an NFL strength and conditioning coach get a wide receiver to run 6.7 and 10.6, how fast could Goodwin have run if he retired from football after his Texas Tech days and devoted his energy to sprinting? His personal bests put him with elite company. By these, I would think Goodwin could have been a 6.5x/10.0x/20.5x guy. And for those who don't know, PAT is partially automatic timing, hand started, laser finish, and about 0.10s slower than hand times.
Long Jump: 27 feet 8.75 inches
40 yard dash: 4.27s (PAT)
60 meter dash: 6.67s (FAT)
100 meter dash: 10.38s (FAT, 10.24s w/2.2m/s wind)
200 meter dash: 21.24s (FAT)
Of course, when the Olympics didn't work out, and Goodwin turned 100% of his focus to the turf again, we've seen several long touchdown catch-and-runs from him this season. But some other players, like Darrius Heyward Bey or Ted Ginn Jr, seem to demonstrate similar wheels on the field. And while all these guys are much faster than the average NFL wide receiver, how fast are the fastest guys in the NFL over 60, 100 and 200 meters? And how fast are the Olympians over 40 yards?