"Michael Vick Ran a 4.2 40!!!!!"

40 times are hand times, which means you ought to add .24 to make them even close to a FAT time. And that is if the timer started his watch when the smoke came out of the gun, which they may not even be using a gun in a 40yd dash, so for me, add 2-3 tenths at least to get an idea of what it would be if FAT like Olympians or any track runners.

Lets assume that the 4.2 is legit.

That does not mean that he could continue the acceleration to run a sub10.

Yeah and Michael Jordan could beat the Long Jump WR.

thats fast!

"why would someone run in the Olympics when they can make millions in the NFL"??

tell your buddy that there's no end of track stars who've tried this path only to be ridiculed for the simple reason that they can't play football (of course there are a few that have succeeded).

All these guys they talk about as being so fast have nearly all run track at some point, and there are a few 10.1/10.2 guys in the NFL - but nearly all of them were coming at best 5th or 6th in NCAA (that's if they even got there). It's just down right disrespectful to say they're better than the Olympians. There's a world of difference between 9.8 and 10.2, not even comparable.

And as for Mike Vick .... why do people keep going on about him?? Sure, he's faster than any other QB, but I'd be VERY surprised if there weren't at least 10 or 15 DB's and WR's in the league faster than him

Ben Johnson has dipped pretty far into the 3's, like 3.7x, or 3.8x.

There are no blocks and no gun. They get a running start, and start the watch (again, by hand) when they cross the "start" line.

The only thing that's accurate in all this is the 40 yd distance. Everything else has a high degree of error.

I've been to a combine. It is not a running start. The watches at the finish line are started on the first movement they see from the runner, but no command is given. They can start when they wish, but do not get a running start. They are good to compare with other football players, but little else.

In college Darrell Green beat Carl Lewis in the 60m or the 100m I can't remember right now.

He beat Carl and ran (i believe) 10.0?. Any way you dice it a 4.2 is freakin fast, and with a lot of training i'm sure Vick could get close to 10 flat.

40 times measure little more than your first 4 steps. Look at someone like Teddy Lehman, 260 pound linebacker that hits 4.3 because he has tons of strength in his quads and strong lower legs. He cant mantain that speed at all and its rare that explosion comes off, and thats all that 40s are. I had mid 4.3 40s in my soccer haydays, and while I have decent sprint speed, it was more because I was super light weight back then compared to the strength in my lower body. 40 time is also deceiving because its one aspect of speed that can be greatly improved through training, particullarly high reps of 4X10 suicides at sprint pace. I'm convinced that 40 time is more of a gauge of work put into an arena of running than actual sprint speed.

Now, tracksters, shoot holes in this theory.

bupm

Mo Greene wasn't all that fast in high high school. He improved a lot afterwards

fmr runner wrote:

In college Darrell Green beat Carl Lewis in the 60m or the 100m I can't remember right now.

That's right, Darrell Green ran a legal 10.08 or 10.07 in college. He's universally considered to be one of, if not the, fastest NFL player of all time. As we all know 10.07 is great, but a long way from being the fastest out there.

And there's no way of knowing if he'd carried on with track after college how he'd have improved, there are a large number of guys who ran 10.0 in college. The majority never really improved, while a few did go on to greater things

Legitimate college programs and the NFL combines actually use FAT to time 40's. However, there is no gun so the clock starts when you cross the start. You're not taking into account the reaction time.

There was a similar thread to this last year on letsrun, and somone posted a link to the top 10 all time 10m increments run during 100m races. That is, top 10 times for the first 10m, for the 2nd 10m, etc. From the last you could determine the fastest ever first 40m and interpolate 40y times. I can't find that list now.

However, the following is on the HSI homepage. If you remove the reaction time from the equation(as they do at the combines) Mo's time would have been approx 3.92 sec.

Maurice Slpits from his 9.80 run at the '99 WC

10m 1.86

20m 2.29

30m 3.81

40m 4.69 ( equal to a 4.05 40yd)

50m 5.55 ( he came through 5.54 during his WR post)

60m 6.39 (equaled his indoor WR)

70m 7.24

80m 8.09

90m 8.94

100m 9.80

Fastest 10 meter split .84 (50-60 meters)

Reaction off the blocks .132

Mo was once asked how he would fare agaisnt Deion Sanders in a forty. His reply was, "I would have touch the forty yard line and would be headed back the other direction before Deion ever got to the forty yard line." I think that is a pretty accurate assesment. All these forty times, you hear you need to add at least .25 to them to come close to the true number.

Sports Illustrated has said that Bo Jackson ran 4.18

chikinki wrote:

fmr runner wrote:

In college Darrell Green beat Carl Lewis in the 60m or the 100m I can't remember right now.

That's right, Darrell Green ran a legal 10.08 or 10.07 in college. He's universally considered to be one of, if not the, fastest NFL player of all time. As we all know 10.07 is great, but a long way from being the fastest out there.

And there's no way of knowing if he'd carried on with track after college how he'd have improved, there are a large number of guys who ran 10.0 in college. The majority never really improved, while a few did go on to greater things

Bob Hayes

In one espn broadcast they said mo green ran 3.94 in the first 40 yards of his wr indoor 60.

I was on the fringe of working with a fellow who was training for the NFL Combine (basically I put him in touch with people who could train him properly since that is far from my area of interest/expertise). I talked with one trainer about 40 times. This fellow had worked with many Olympic athletes.

He was pretty clear that 40 times serve as a way to set everyone to the same standard, sort of like the SAT/ACT. As a measure of what a person can do on the field, it is lacking. For one thing, how often does a person run a straight line, all out 40 in a game? Especially if that person is a lineman?

The vertical jump test is probably a far better indicator since it measures (to some degree) explosive power. A lineman for instance, may only need to run a few yards before he either initiates his block or gets to the tackle.

I think a 10 yard dash would be more appropriate. Organizations get stuck in the "we have always done it this way". Recently I changed a protocol in our lab situation to reflect what really happens in the sport. Of course there is no validation of the protocol yet (although we are getting there) which is problematic.

As for football v. track, I would say one could far more easily take a fast football player and train him to be a sprinter than a sprinter who never played football and teach him to play football. Being a receiver or RB in football is a lot harder than people think. You have to have football smarts. Not sure how smart one really needs to be to be a sprinter. This ignores the fact that you are going to get knocked on your ass on a regular basis by very large and generally feisty men.

Another factor that everyone is missing here is that even the smallest football player in the NFL is probably taller and weighs more than your typically high caliber sprinter.

For instance, Quentin Griffin is one of the smallest position players in the NFL (listed at 5"7' and 197 according to the Denver Bronco website--hell the Broncos KICKER is bigger!). Justin Gatlin is listed at USATF as 6"1' and 168 lbs). Gatlin is taller than most sprinters but the weight is in line with the quick survey of US sprinters.