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The 40-yard dash is a sprint covering 40 yards (36.576 m). It is primarily run to evaluate the speed of football players by scouts, particularly for the NFL Draft but also for collegiate recruiting. A player's recorded time in the 40 can have a heavy impact on his prospects in college or professional football. This was traditionally only true for the 'skill' positions such as running back, wide receiver, and defensive back, although now a fast 40-yard dash time is considered important for almost every position.
Timing method
The method of timing a 40-yard sprint can affect the accuracy by as much .5 seconds (with the manual stopwatch method). The best methods of timing are lasers which start and stop the times when passed through. A laser start (from a stationary position) is perhaps more accurate because the only factor measured is speed, not reaction time.
Best times
Many reported times are unreliable due to differences in timing methods if not intentional falsifications. The NFL did not begin using partial electronic timing (started by hand, stopped electronically) at the NFL Scouting Combine until 1990.
In track and field races, the runner must react to the starting gun, which takes approximately 0.24 seconds, based on FAT timing. For electronically timed 40 yard dashes, the runner is allowed to start when he wishes, and a timer hand-starts the clock.
Although the 40-yard dash is not an official race in track and field, the 60 meter dash is an official distance in indoor track and field, with the world record for that race being 6.39 seconds (run twice by Maurice Greene, and once by Ben Johnson, whose record was annulled for an unofficial Steroid test). The fastest 60m split time is 6.19 seconds by Usain Bolt, in his 9.69 second 100m World Record. It was quoted by an ESPN reporter after Bolt set the record that his 9.69 second 100m sprint would equate to a 3.53 40-yard dash time (covering 36.5 meters). Fast starting elite sprinters such as Asafa Powell (and others past and present) can run a "Football 40" under 4 seconds, because the sprinter does not have to react to the sound of the gun, and the starter has to react to their movement before the clock starts. In the 2001 World Championship 100m final in Edmonton, Greene covered 30m in 3.25 seconds running time and 40m in 3.92 seconds running time, putting his 40 yard (36.576m) running time at about 3.75 seconds. Given a hypothetical timer's reaction time to Greene's motion, Greene's "Football 40" time for this race would have been between 3.45 and 3.55 seconds.
There actually is no single, "official" 40 time at the NFL Combine. National Scouting, which runs the combine, provides three times per run, two fully hand-held and one stopped electronically. Each player may run twice, thereby yielding a potential six times. National Scouting provides all six of these times to NFL teams. The teams then do what they want with those times, or ignore them. Some teams use the best electronic time. Some teams throw out the fastest and slowest and average the rest. Some teams use the best time provided. And some teams use a time provided by their own scout on site.
References
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- This page was last modified on 17 November 2008, at 18:06.
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