Who REALLY Cares About "40" Time?? | Page 2 | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

Who REALLY Cares About "40" Time??

It really depends on the player.

Some guys like Jerry Rice are so in tune with the speed of the game that it doesn't matter. Others like Oronde Gadsden are just slow as hell..........
 
Pocoloco said:
there is certainly too much emphasis placed on 40 times, but there is a profound difference between a 4.3 (Ginn Jr.) and a 4.6 (Jarrett) if you're goal is to stretch the field and put the safeties on their heels.

frankly, I don't know why they don't make the guys do the 40, and the shuttle cones, in full pads. That's what they're gonna get paid to do anywya.
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By whom? Fans? Media? Or teams?

The truth is that the 40 has become a "speed index" term used to describe the differences in players' speeds. That is why you hear about the 40 time all the time and are under the false impression that it is this all-important tool in personnel evaluation.

It is important. It really is. But the reason that the 40 has become largely synonimous with a player's speed rating, is simply a matter of public convenience and has nothing to do with what the scouts and personnel people do.
 
Mr.Majestik said:
Forty times are of minimal usefulness as a measuring stick. The forty times you read about at the combine are generally averages, players can run the forty multiple times, so they might have one spectacular time and a couple mediocre ones. Secondly the times are not recorded on grass, and the players do not wear equipment, which skews the results further. Thirdly, receivers rarely run in straight lines in an NFL game. It's stop and go, cut and turn. DBs are backpedaling, which gives even slower receivers a huge advantage over faster DBs. Shuttle runs are supposedly a more useful tool in measuring a receiver's movement skills.
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When I read criticisms like this I can't help but think that most people just totally misunderstand the purpose behind the 40 yard dash time as an evaluation tool.
 
ckparrothead said:
When I read criticisms like this I can't help but think that most people just totally misunderstand the purpose behind the 40 yard dash time as an evaluation tool.
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I don't believe Mr. Majestik was criticizing anything.

Tell us exactly what the true purpose of the 40-yard dash is. What does it really evaluate?
 
Yes 40 times matter.

The difference between a 4.4 and a 4.6 isn't just their 40 speed. There is no straight 40 time gene, if you are faster in the 40 you are more explosive in everything.

A 40 time isn't very important by itself, it's the effect it has on every other aspect of athleticism that makes it important.
 
DolfanDonny said:
I don't believe Mr. Majestik was criticizing anything.

Tell us exactly what the true purpose of the 40-yard dash is. What does it really evaluate?
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Athleticism

Take a 4.6 guy and a 4.4 guy. 99.9% of the time the 4.4 guy will jump higher, make cleaner/faster cuts, have a more explosive first step and so on and so forth.
 
While the 40 isn't the exclusive most important thing that makes a player rated high, it is one of the more important pieces. Much like a guys vertical jump, shuttle, etc. Why? Because those things cannot be taught. If two WR's are equal in every category except speed and routes. One can run a 4.3 40 and has sloppy routes and the other has a 4.5 40 and crisp routes, 9 out of 10 teams will grab the guy who's faster. Why? Because they feel they can teach him how to run crisp routes. They can't make the 4.5 guy faster. Now if that same 4.5 guy can out-jump everone else by 6 inches, then his stock now goes up. RB's are given a little more flexibility with the speed thing, because there are a lot of other factors involved. Come game-time the difference in the two slight speeds is easily shown by the run of R.Bush pulling away from B.Urlacker in the NFC championship game. Urlacker is pretty fast for a LB, but probably .2-.3 slower than Bush. Even though he had the angle on him, the difference in that .2 resulted in a TD, not a tackle at the 30 yard line.
 
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ckparrothead said:
When I read criticisms like this I can't help but think that most people just totally misunderstand the purpose behind the 40 yard dash time as an evaluation tool.
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I don't misundestand the dashes purpose. I simply point out that as an evaluation tool it is highly suspect to what it's supposed to measure, for the reasons I pointed out. If it were a scientific experiment, it would be the most crudely engineered test you could propose: Let's have a bunch of guys do forty-yard dashes on a track surface, sans equipment, in ideal weather conditions, run in a straight line, and do it two, or three times, instead of 40, or 50 times like a receiver is expected to do in a game, then let's use that number to quantify fast and slow. As a tool it's inferior to the shuttle run, that's not my opinion, that's what scouts say. And yes, I realize that personnel people in the NFL attach less relevance to the forty then the media, or fans do. It's like an IQ score, people use it to quantify things it doesn't measure.
 
40 times do matter...travis daniels runs like a 4.65 or sumthing and could nevere cover steve smith who prob. runs a 4.4
 
ckparrothead said:
By whom? Fans? Media? Or teams?

The truth is that the 40 has become a "speed index" term used to describe the differences in players' speeds. That is why you hear about the 40 time all the time and are under the false impression that it is this all-important tool in personnel evaluation.

It is important. It really is. But the reason that the 40 has become largely synonimous with a player's speed rating, is simply a matter of public convenience and has nothing to do with what the scouts and personnel people do.
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That's interesting if it's true. Is it really not heavily emphasized by personnel departments? How else would we account for meteoric rises in draft stock based what appears to be solely on blazing 40 times (see: Fabian Washington, Troy Williamson, etc).

The player who comes to mind first is actually Jon Alston from last year's draft. I follow Stanford football closely and Alston was a solid player, but nothing special. He runs in the 4.4 range at the combine (he's a LB) and all the sudden he is taken in the early 3rd round. This kid wasn't even 3rd team All-Pac 10!

And how do we account for the falling stock of players like Chad Johnson from years back following poor 40 times at the combine?
 
JFoxx said:
While the 40 isn't the exclusive most important thing that makes a player rated high, it is one of the more important pieces. Much like a guys vertical jump, shuttle, etc. Why? Because those things cannot be taught. If two WR's are equal in every category except speed and routes. One can run a 4.3 40 and has sloppy routes and the other has a 4.5 40 and crisp routes, 9 out of 10 teams will grab the guy who's faster. Why? Because they feel they can teach him how to run crisp routes. They can't make the 4.5 guy faster. Now if that same 4.5 guy can out-jump everone else by 6 inches, then his stock now goes up. RB's are given a little more flexibility with the speed thing, because there are a lot of other factors involved. Come game-time the difference in the two slight speeds is easily shown by the run of R.Bush pulling away from B.Urlacker in the NFC championship game. Urlacker is pretty fast for a LB, but probably .2-.3 slower than Bush. Even though he had the angle on him, the difference in that .2 resulted in a TD, not a tackle at the 30 yard line.
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exactly-Speed is God given and can only be honed a SMALL bit- Routes and hands are gained through experience and proper teaching-
 
DolfanDonny said:
Sure it's the end-all, be-all of the combine for receivers and running backs. But, come on...let's be real. That kind of time difference (i.e. between a 4.4 and a 4.6) doesn't matter a hill of beans when you're on the field.

Have you ever tried to count to 10 over the span of one second? Now imagine doing that, but stopping at "2." Probably can't be done. IF it can, could you even distinguish between when the first guy runs past you from the second at the 40-yard mark??? 4.4 speed at WR also doesn't matter if you're matched up with 4.4. speed at CB.

I don't think I could blow a fart past you in the .2 of a second everyone is squabbling about.

What matters is elusiveness, ability to stop, start and change directions, ability to "separate" and a decent pair of hands. Let's find a receiver with multiple qualities instead of one with "break-neck speed" who can mythically "stretch the field." If you're blazing toward the goal line, 10 yds behind your CB, but you can't catch the ball, you don't make it in my offense.
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Run some 40's competitively. Better yet, spend a few years running 40's with a wide array of different athletes. You'll realize you don't have a clue how big of a difference a 4.6 is from a 4.4. And in a game of inches, that is a HUGE difference.
 
RB LaDainian Tomlinson(5-10, 222, 4.55) Texas Christian, Ricky Williams, Emmett Smith, Shaun Alexander, Walter Payton, Barry Sanders, Tiki Barber, OJ McDuffie, Jerry Rice all slow runners in the combine, but no one can catch them on the football field.
 
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saves said:
Run some 40's competitively. Better yet, spend a few years running 40's with a wide array of different athletes. You'll realize you don't have a clue how big of a difference a 4.6 is from a 4.4. And in a game of inches, that is a HUGE difference.
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Take a guy who runs a 4.4 on a track in ideal conditions, let him sprint up and down a football field for three quarters, and see if he's running a 4.4 in the fourth quarter. Bill Walsh was once asked why Jerry Rice, who timed poorly in the forty, had no peer in yards after catch, and Walsh responded that Rice may have been slower then many of the DBs pursuing him in the first-quarter, but he was faster in the fourth quarter. You could literally create a list of hundreds of great players that didn't time well in the forty, and you could create another list of players with great measurables who didn't amount to much of anything. Zach Thomas came into the NFL with no speed, he had anticipation. Edgerrin James and Ricky Williams didn't possess blazing speed, neither does LaDainian Tomlinson, or Shaun Alexander, or Curtis Martin, nor did Terrell Davis, or Emmitt Smith. Chad Johnson is not a burner. Marvin Harrison is more quick, then fast. Two of the most prolific active receivers have been slow pokes their entire careers--Keenan McCardell and Rod Smith. Some guys aren't necessarily fast, but they are quick. How many burners are great players? Santana Moss, Randy Moss, Joey Galloway. Jevon Kearse had astounding speed for his position, but he's been no better, and arguably much worse then some guys lacking anywhere near his quickness, or straight line speed. It's a highly overrated aspect of a player's makeup.
 
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