Running the 40 Yard Dash: The Necessary Evil

With the NFL combine starting Wednesday, I thought I would take a little time discussing the 40 yard dash and its true significance in football or any other sport for that matter.

I don't know exactly when the 40 became such a popular test. I remember getting timed for it in football and that was in the late 80's (yeah I'm dating myself here). The 4.4 was the standard. If you could get a 4.4, boy were you fast.

Then Deion Sanders ran a 4.21 in the 1989 combine and it was the talk of the town. It can make or break the start of NFL careers. Rightly or wrongly, a lot is judged on how an individual does on this race. Does someone have pure speed? I don't know why so much stock is put into this race though. In a football game, how many times is an individual running 40 yards?? Once, twice maybe. Receivers run some go routes. Lineman aren't doing it and sometimes running backs will break free for that big one.

How many of you remember Mike Mamula? He was the guy in the 1995 draft that had an incredible combine. He basically trained with a strength coach who just repeatedly trained the drills that would be in the combine. Thus a new niche was born and a projected 3rd round pick at best catapulted to a top 10 pick by the Eagles. Not getting into too many details, the Eagles traded picks with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to get in the top 10 to grab Mamula. Those swapped picks led to the drafting of Warren Sapp and Derrick Brooks for the Bucs. Seems like a fair trade huh.

The 40 is a test that judges speed, but you can't judge if a football player is a good player or a bad player. Here is how you can look at the 40.

Here are some actual breakdowns of the 40 run by some of today's current stars:

• Drew Brees at the combine ran a 4.67 in the 40. His 10 yard dash was 1.66 and his 20 yard dash was 2.75. Your second 20 will probably be faster than the first 20 because you're starting to reach top speed. His flying 10 (subtract 20 from the 10) was a 1.09. That is more than a .3 of a second difference than the inital 10 so he is accelerating nicely. He was probably hitting his top speed at around 30 yards still accelerating to get under 2 seconds for his second 20.
• Matt Ryan ran a 4.89 in the 40. His 10 yard dash was 1.62 and his 20 was a 2.81. His flying 10 was a 1.19. A faster initial 10, but not accelerating as fast as Drew. He probably hit his top speed right around 25 yards and just tried to maintain it for the rest of the 40. Thus his second 20 was above 2 seconds.

Now let's take a look at some speedsters:

• Adrian Peterson ran a 4.4 in the 40 yard dash. His 10 was a 1.53 and his 20 was a 2.58. His flying ten was a 1.05 then. His second 20 was a 1.82. This means he is accelerating through to the end of the 40. Hitting his top speed somewhere around 40-45 yards. THIS IS HOW YOU WANT TO RUN THE 40. You want to not hit full speed and maintain it (too much work), but continue to accelerate all the way through to the finish line.
• Desean Jackson ran a 4.29 in the 40 (WOW!) His 10 yard dash was 1.53 and his 20 was a 2.52 Are you kidding me?? His flying 10 was .99 seconds. Unbelievable! A whopping 1.77 in the second 20. Now this guy is truly accelerating all the way through. He has some get up and go.

Now these are obviously the elite. The best of the best. Ultimately, if you are a football player, but not that fast in the 40, it isn't the end of the world. You might get dinged a little bit, but what will really have to show is what you do on the field and I think that is what the scouts will see in the end. Maybe you don't get drafted as high as you desired, but if you have heart, toughness, and show something on the field, that can't be ignored.

I think what I show here is if you run a 10 and a 20, we can figure out roughly what your 40 time will be based on the flying 10 and your initial starting 10. Like I stated these things can be worked on to try to improve those numbers, but the reverse can also be true. If you have an astounding 40 time, your football highlights aren't great, the 40 can then open up some doors for you. Coaches might think this guy is an athlete and if I can put him in the right situation, he can have great success.

Like I said, a necessary evil. We can complain all we want about how impractical the test is, but it ain't going away any time soon. When you are hearing about the NFL combine this week, what do you think the first question will be? How fast did he run the 40?