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Wednesday, March 27, 2002

Players know importance of 40-yard time
By Len Pasquarelli
ESPN.com

For some players, the socio-economic ascent from college poverty to NFL stardom is a pothole-pocked marathon requiring years of perseverance to reach the finish line. For others, the road is compressed into a 40-yard stretch traversed in less than five seconds.

Whether run on AstroTurf, a rubberized track or a corridor of freshly-clipped Bermuda, the 40-yard dash is the road paved with gold for top college prospects when the NFL holds its annual player draft on April 20-21. Despite contentions of league personnel directors that the sprint is but one of several "measurables" used to assess the talent pool, many players believe their 40-yard time is the single most critical component of their draft status.

Life in the 40-yard fast lane, dozens of draft eligible players insist, can translate into a difference of several rounds and millions of dollars. In essence, the 40 has become a dash for cash.

Combine Times
There were 11 players timed at 4.45 second or less in the 40-yard dash at the annual combine workouts in Indianapolis earlier this month. Here is a look at their times:
Player	School	Time
WR Aaron Lockett	Kansas St.	4.31
WR Tim Carter	Auburn	4.32
WR Clifford Russell	Utah	4.36
WR Jevon Walker	Florida St.	4.38
CB Tony Beckham	Wisconsin-Stout	4.39
CB Joseph Jeffeson	W. Kentucky	4.39
CB Rashad Bauman	Oregon	4.42
WR Andre Davis	Va. Tech	4.42
RB Josh Scobey	Kansas St.	4.42
WR Herb Haygood	Michigan St.	4.45
WR Emmett Johnson	Va. Tech	4.45

"The scouts and general managers are always telling the players not to put too much pressure on yourself in the 40, because there's more to a workout than just how fast you run," said Antwaan Randle-El, the former Indiana University quarterback who is being projected as a wide receiver and return specialist in the draft. "But the 40 is the first thing anyone ever wants to talk about. I mean, no one has ever come up to me and said, 'So, how was your shuttle drill?' People don't say, like, 'What was your vertical (jump)?' Uh-uh, it's all about the 40 time. That's the magic number everybody wants to know about."

The significance of the 40 has grown to mythic proportions for draft prospects in the roughly 35 years since scouts settled on that unusual length as an optimum distance for measuring functional speed and quickness.

Notable is that over the past five years there has been an average of only 60 rushes from scrimmage of 40 yards or more per season in the NFL, one for every four games played. Yet nearly two-thirds of the 42 players surveyed by ESPN.com at the recent combine workouts in Indianapolis rated the 40-yard dash as the most important element of their pre-draft workouts.

The reality is that teams increasingly draw up their draft boards based on the big picture and lean more now toward production -- how well a prospect has performed at every level of competition -- than on potential. Still, the perception among the players is that the 40 time is the make-or-break barometer in draft analysis, and that perception has become reality to them.

And, frankly, no one can really blame players for harboring that sentiment.

Two weeks ago, in his on-campus workout, University of Tennessee wideout Donte Stallworth catapulted himself from a likely first-round draft choice to the top receiver on virtually every team's board with an electrifying performance. Because of that workout, Stallworth could now be a top-10 selection. The primary reason was a 40 every scout present clocked in the low- to mid-4.2 seconds.

Never mind that Stallworth also posted an NBA-caliber vertical jump, a strong long jump and ran solid routes despite a sprained right ankle. "When I hit the end (of the 40 yards)," Stallworth said, "there was just this buzz among the scouts. I knew I had done something special."

Conversely, there was great collective angst among scouts last spring when North Carolina State wide receiver Koren Robinson failed to finish the 40-yard dash with a lightning time during his workouts because he had a hamstring injury. Robinson was still chosen by Seattle with the ninth overall pick in the first round, but not without some reservation. Scouts from other teams still deemed him a risk because of his incomplete résumé.

So don't try telling prospects that their 40-yard times aren't significant.

"You look up in the stands at (the combine) and see all those scouts sitting there," said St. Louis Rams fullback Robert Holcombe a few years ago after his audition, "and you know that the one thing that's going to bring them out of their seats is if you burn a great 40 time. So you better believe it's important, no matter what scouts say, because it's still the best way to get their attention. Run a good 40 and everyone wants to talk to you."

The importance of the 40 is, of course, fueled by stories like that of former Boston College star defensive end Mike Mamula, whose 4.58-second time at the 1995 combine improved his stock enough to make him the seventh player selected in that year's draft. That earned him a contract from the Philadelphia Eagles that paid him $1.58 million annually.

But while Mamula had a decent NFL career, one that ended with his retirement last year, he never really lived up to the hype created by his '95 combine performance.

"He was one of the all-time workout warriors, and he made himself a ton of money by running that 40 time," said San Diego general manager John Butler. "But kids hear stories like that and figure the 40 is the be-all and the end-all. They don't realize there are a lot of other things involved in a draft decision."

Before the 1990 draft, then-University of Florida tailback Emmitt Smith ran a rather pedestrian 40 time in the 4.7-second range, and Penn State running back Blair Thomas was clocked at 4.45. The Jets used the second overall choice on Thomas, who was labeled a "can't miss" prospect. Smith slid to 17th in the first round before Dallas ended his free-fall by trading up to grab him. A dozen years later, Smith is poised to become the leading rusher in history and Thomas has been out of the game for seven years.

At this year's combine workouts, where once again most of the top prospects chose not to run the 40, there were 11 players clocked in under 4.45 seconds. It's notable, though, that none of them is considered a certain first-round pick. On the other hand, players such as Alabama-Birmingham defensive end Bryan Thomas and Auburn wide receiver Tim Carter probably moved themselves up several rounds with terrific 40 times.

Carter timed at 4.32 and went from a late-round choice to a prospect who likely will be selected in the third round. Thomas was clocked at 4.47 seconds -- faster than 25 of the 29 tailbacks who ran in Indianapolis and quicker than 18 of the 28 wide receivers -- and opened some eyes.

There is no denying the greed for speed is a motivating force. In 1989, after running an unofficial combine record time of 4.27 seconds, Deion Sanders complained that the slow surface at the RCA Dome cost him at least one-tenth of a second. Rod Woodson, who burned a 4.29 time at the 1987 combines had suggested the same thing.

	“	Truth be told. I'm probably like most other scouts. When I look at a report on a player, the first thing my eyes fall on in most cases is that 40 time, you know? You just can't help yourself. ”
		— Ozzie Newsome, Ravens vice president of personnel

The belief that a lower 40 time translates into bigger contracts, in fact, has spawned a cottage industry comprised mostly of former sprint coaches who are hired by prospects desperate to improve their times. Facilities in Atlanta, Bradenton, Fla., and New Orleans, among others, are filled to capacity during the spring with prospects trying to shave a hair off their 40 times.

"Everybody wants the same thing, more speed, and they get frustrated at times when they see there is a limit to what you can do," said self-proclaimed "performance enchancement specialist" Tom Shaw of New Orleans, who annually trains dozens of draft prospects. "By doing the little things, like fine-tuning technique or working on initial explosion, you can reduce a time. But you aren't going to take a guy regularly running 5 seconds and transform him into a 4.5 (player). Still, for every tenth of a second you take off, there are dollars attached to it. These guys know that."

Noted one college conditioning coach: "For our guys with NFL aspirations, speed is everything. And speed translates into the 40-yard time."

Longtime league general manager Bobby Beathard, who once timed Redskins cornerback Darrell Green in an astounding 4.18 seconds (one Kansas City scout clocked Tennessee's Stallworth at the same time during his workout), noted a few years ago that a sluggish 40-yard time definitely can be a humbling experience for those players who assign too much significance to it. He suggested that players would be far wiser to heed the scouts when they tell them that production and overall football skills are the most essential elements.

Unfortunately, the tale of the finish tape is frequently a tale of woe for those players who place too much stock in how fast they cover 120 feet of real estate.

"For a guy who legitimately believes he is going to run in the 4.2s to instead be in the 4.6s, it is a crushing thing sometimes," said Washington Redskins personnel director Vinny Cerrato. "There has just been so much emphasis placed on the 40-yard time, and we're all guilty of it, for sure."

Buffalo general manager Tom Donahoe, one of the NFL's premier talent scouts, continues to insist the 40 times is only a small part of a player's résumé. He recalled that former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Chuck Noll won four Super Bowl championships by stressing "playing strength and playing speed."

Speed is only a factor, Donahoe said, if it is functional speed. If a player runs 4.2 on a track but plays at 4.7 once he puts on he pads, the dropoff in efficiency is significant. "You look at a kid on tape and he's making all kinds of plays," Donahoe said. "But then you time him and he's kind of average. Does that make him a different player because he didn't run fast that one day? We don't think so. We try to look at the entire picture."

But NFL teams do attach an inordinate emphasis to the 40-yard times. Scouts scurry all over the country, stopwatches in hand, to get accurate 40-yard times. A prospect without a 40 time, said former Green Bay general manager Ron Wolf, is considered to have a "huge hole" in his file.

There are tales of scouts measuring off 40 yards in the corridor of a campus classroom building for lack of a better place to run. Longtime scout Bill Groman, one of the pioneers of the trade, recalls running a prospect in the parking lot of a super market where the player worked in the checkout line. Most scouts have similar stories.

Baltimore Ravens vice president of personnel Ozzie Newsome, a Hall of Fame tight end, said that when he was a senior coming out of Alabama, he viewed the 40 as "just one of the tests" that he had to perform for scouts. But he recalled that, at that point of scouting development, the sprint was not regarded as being nearly as critical as it is now. Newsome said he has tried to maintain that stance, that the 40-yard dash is but one barometer.

"Truth be told," Newsome said, "I'm probably like most other scouts. When I look at a report on a player, the first thing my eyes fall on in most cases is that 40 time, you know? You just can't help yourself."

Len Pasquarelli is an ESPN.com senior writer.