Are ther any NFL guys that could go sub 10 in the 2 mile?

You apparently have no idea what it takes to run 1:50. Although in general the shorter the distance the more competitive these guys would be, 10:00 is not in the same class as 1:50.[/quote]

No, it's not in the same class. But it relates much more closely to the type of fitness an NFL player would have. Running a two-mile has almost no relation to a football game, but the speed endurance training one would see in a 400-800 type runner looks quite similar to something Jerry Rice or other famously hard working receivers and defensive backs are doing all offseason. And these guys are incredible athletes. I don't think im off base at all in saying that, if the entire league raced an all-out 800, the top 5 would run 1:53 or faster, and the top 1-2 would be right in the 1:50-1:51 range.

there just isn't any data to support your claims. the best MIDDLE distance runners we have are much more likely playing soccer or actually running than playing football. pretty much all of these fast nfl guys ran track in high school at least, many in college and they are just nowhere near as talented as you wish they were. they are too tall, bulky and slow to be the best sprinters as well. look at michael bates. he was an olympic medalist and when he returned kickoffs there was NOONE even close if he broke free. that wide dude from iowa (time something) was also legit fast and still wouldn't have made it in track. now as for field events, this is where some nfl guys could dominate (or mlb, randy johnson with a jav?, or nba and jumps)!

(http://www.soconsports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?&DB_OEM_ID=4000&ATCLID=168092&SPID=1773&SPSID=21827) plus the average nontrack pro players are much more likely to be chemically enhanced than the average t and f athlete.

I don't think im off base at all in saying that, if the entire league raced an all-out 800, the top 5 would run 1:53 or faster, and the top 1-2 would be right in the 1:50-1:51 range.

No way can ANYONE in the NFL run 1:50-1:51 without training for it.

sorry wrote:

they are just nowhere near as talented as you wish they were. they are too tall, bulky and slow to be the best sprinters as well.

You don't think that Santana Moss (Big East Record holder in the 60m), Darrell Green (Beat Carl Lewis in college), Devin Hester, or Micheal Bennett (10.06 100m in college I believe) would have made it as pro sprinters? There are dozens of NFL players that could have made in as sprinters as well.

Willie Gault can almost run that now, and he's been out of the NFL for almost twenty years. Devin Hester, Ginn, Moss and a number of other guys could more than likely run 1:50 right now.

No chance Randy Johnson could throw a javelin at a world-class level; jav requires too much speed and a vastly different technique. Plus, the guy is well over 40; he'd be lucky to break 210'.

As for NFL-ers in the 2-mile, there is absolutely NO CHANCE that any of them could break 10 for the 2-mile. The poster who commented on how footballers are America's greatest athletes means "explosive athletes", which is a completely different type of athlete. This parallels the discussion on Mo Greene in the mile; the informed consensus was that he'd be pretty good to break five, with a terrible drop-off if the distance got longer. Some guys in the NFL might be a little less fast-twitch than Greene, but there's nobody who's so substantially distance-oriented that they could break 10 in a two-mile.

mwrnr wrote:

No way can ANYONE in the NFL run 1:50-1:51 without training for it.

Agreed. In the NFL all that matters is top end speed so they are all sprinters. So how many sprinters do you know who can run 1:51 with no training?

That's right, none.

I know a guy, a kicker albeit, who played football in college and still might be playing NFL Europe. He ran 1:52 and 14:46 for 3 miles in high school. So with the hundreds of players in the NFL, there is bound to be somebody who can break 10 minutes.

First of all just because NFL guys are the best all-around athletes as some have said (and this may be true) doesn't mean this talent extends into the realm of distance running. Take a look at any jr high or high school PE class (I'll use mine as an example). Before I even started running I could kill my entire PE class on our PE XC course (1 mile), including all the multi-sport stars and supposed super athletes (and some of them were super athletes). I wasn't any Alan Webb either...at that time I doubt I could break 11:00.

Second, if you look at the annual high school lists, you will find that many 1:53-1:55 guys (which may be a reasonable guestimate of what a DB or WR could run) will barely break 10:00, especially if they were tending to be 400/800 types. The guy who holds my HS 800m record ran 1:55 in hs and 1:53 in college and had the body type of a distance runner (5'10 and 140-150lbs) and couldn't break 10:00 even though all he trained for was running.

I don't doubt that a number of NFLers could run under 10:00 if they stopped training for football, shed some muscle, and focused on the 2 mile. But I really doubt that many of them are suited for distance running. There are probably a few guys out there that would surprise you though.

Jonathan Johnson ran 1:51 as a 16 year old, why couldn't Marvin Harrison or Chad Johnson do that? JJ was very raw and untrained at the time, he was a kid.

Like I said before which has been proven by the responses, track folks have an inflated sense of self concerning these issues.

The idea that not one pro football player could run sub 10 two mile is absolutely laughable. I bet you would be hard pressed to find an NFL CB that couldn't if he had the incentive to.

Im a just saying wrote:

Agreed. In the NFL all that matters is top end speed so they are all sprinters. So how many sprinters do you know who can run 1:51 with no training?

That's right, none.

Football players aren't sprinters. High level sprinters train for one explosive burst. Skill position players in football train for 30 to 35 bursts with short periods of rest in between. BIG difference.

At my school (a BCS football school) we had a 2-mile as part of the max testing every year for all sports. Maybe the incentive wasn't there, but the football 2-mile record was nowhere close to 10 minutes. Of course, the XC 2-mile was only 9:15 or so because the distance guys could opt out of that one.

On a side note, it was kind of embarrassing because we had a big chart in the weight room with all of the records, and the men's XC squats, bench, vertical jump, etc records were worse than most of the women's sports. That is, until they made some of the 400m guys run XC...

If there is anyone in the NFL who could break 10 for the 2 mile, it would probably have to be one of the kickers. All the other guys are too damn big to do it.

Michael Bennett was 10.18 in college, not 10.06; I have seen two seriously erroneous times for him recently (one as sub-10, although maybe he had a 10.06w, which we know is not the same).As for the OP, kickers might well be the sub-10:00 types, since many of them came from soccer. Find one with their soccer days not too long in the past and they might be able to train back up to the soccer-duration conditioning (plus, these guys might do a lot of soccer during the off season).

fmr wrote:

sorry wrote:

they are just nowhere near as talented as you wish they were. they are too tall, bulky and slow to be the best sprinters as well.

You don't think that Santana Moss (Big East Record holder in the 60m), Darrell Green (Beat Carl Lewis in college), Devin Hester, or Micheal Bennett (10.06 100m in college I believe) would have made it as pro sprinters? There are dozens of NFL players that could have made in as sprinters as well.

donm wrote:

As an example of what a modern CB can do, Jason Sehorn ran the half-mile in 2:45 in Superstars. Yikes.

He was a T&F athlete. Triple jumped 48 feet plus for the Shasta College record in '91.

fmr wrote:

Football players aren't sprinters. High level sprinters train for one explosive burst. Skill position players in football train for 30 to 35 bursts with short periods of rest in between. BIG difference.

No, it's not much of a difference. At the end of the day football players are selected by the speed of the burst, not their endurance.

donm wrote:

Was this actually run on a track? I'd be suspicious of the accuracy of the course in Superstars. Competitions like that are designed to make the athletes look good, and they often make courses a bit short, weights a bit light, etc.

If memory serves, it was on a track on Key Biscayne in Florida (just off of Miami). At least some of the years were there.

I think that many NFL players could break 10 if they trained, while a few could without training for it.

I like the analogy of a sprinter with the 800. Football players are sprinters. Could a strictly 100/200 guy run 1:50? A 200/400 guy would have a much better chance.

I'd say the top NFL guys would be 1:54-1:56 range possibly having a few faster than that.

Randy Moss breaking 9?

There's no way he could break 9. Completely different lever.

I believe Jerry Rice would have been close to a sub 10 2-mile during any one of his seasons. Maybe its just exagerated stories about his fitness but he was said to be a workout fanatic so much so that other nfl athletes could not handle his strict training regime. The first Rice workout that comes to mind is the 2 to 2.5 mile hill run in SF he would do even during the football season. Just from a google search it seemed his training was rather balanced with endurance, speed, and weight lifting.