Devery Henderson runs a sub 4.2 fourty today....

I always heard that Bo Jackson supposedly ran a 4.18 when he was at Auburn. Don't know who timed it, though or how official it was, or what the circumstances were. Could just be part of Bo's legend.

 

OK guys NO ONE runs a sub 4.2 40. Times like that are bogus. Dieon, Devery, Bo, Maurice Green; none of them can run that fast. When a steroid enhanced Ben Johson won the 100 meter in 1988 with a time of 9.79, he covered the first 40 yards in approximately 4.26 seconds and he was regarded as one of the greatest starters in the history of sprinting.

So Devery is very fast, but he's not that fast.

 

Forty times are bogus in the NFL
April 17, 2001
BY CLARK JUDGE
FOXSports.com

There is something that makes no sense to me, and, for once, it doesn't
involve Mark Cuban. No, it's what I'm hearing about Michael Vick, the
first choice in this weekend's draft. The word starting to make the
rounds on the Virginia Tech quarterback is that he can run the 40 in
less than 4.3 seconds.

I never saw Vick run a 40, and I wasn't at his workout at Virginia Tech.
But one thing I can guarantee is this: Vick cannot run the 40 in under
4.3 seconds. Heck, he can't run it under 4.4, either.

That's not a knock on Vick. It's a knock on an NFL practice that is
absolutely, positively out of whack. I'm talking about 40-yard dash
times. They're the standard by which draft-eligible players are
measured, and they're as reliable as UFO sightings.

Yet when the NFL begins its march of draftees on Saturday you're going
to hear how one running back ran a 4.32, a wide receiver peeled off a
4.34 or some 350-pound lummox breezed through a 4.85. It makes for good
copy. But so did Paul Bunyan.

"The only way to get a true 40-yard dash time is to get electronic
timing where a man breaks a wire when he leaves the starting gate," said
Buffalo's vice president in charge of player personnel, Dwight Adams.
"The 40 is a common denominator in football, but it's blown way out of
proportion. It's physically impossible to run a 4.2 and, probably, a
4.3."

Don't tell that to the guys holding stopwatches. I remember when Vance
Johnson, then a wide receiver at the University of Arizona, ran the 40
in 4.19 seconds. At least that's what I was told. I guess Denver was,
too, because the Broncos made him their second-round draft pick in 1985.

I also remember when Laveranues Coles, then a wide receiver at Florida
State, was supposed to have run a 4.16. Nobody said anything about it
being wind-aided, but it would have taken Hurricane Andrew to push him
to a finish like that. The Jets media guide has him clocked at 4.29 last
year, and there was no wind advisory there, either.

The NFL scouting combine has been using electronic timing since 1990,
but that's one year after Deion Sanders set the standard against which
all others are measured. Sanders ran a 4.29 in Prime Time, and nobody
has beaten the mark since.

"You've got to take into consideration that most of these times are done
with stopwatches," said San Diego State's Rahn Sheffield, coach of the
women's track and field squad and a former track star himself. "A 4.2
really translates to a 4.4. When you hand time (dashes) it opens up room
for human error. So when a Marshall Faulk runs a 4.33, it really equates
to a 4.5."

All of which comes as no news to Adams, who for years has laughed off
40-yard dashes and vertical jumps and long jumps as insignificant
measures of a football prospect's abilities. He's more interested in
production, which makes a lot of sense to me . and anyone else who
believes stopwatches weren't made for football.

Remember when Jerry Rice emerged from Mississippi Valley State in 1985?
He was supposed to be too slow. Same with USC running back Marcus Allen.
Yeah, well, I never saw a defensive back who could catch Rice from
behind until he tore up his knee, and Allen's a lock for the Hall of
Fame.

O.J. Simpson might have been the fastest back to play the game. Go ahead
and make a case for Bo Jackson. Maybe Herschel Walker, too. But Simpson
ran a leg on Southern Cal's 440-yard relay team, one that set a world
record, and if he were in this year's draft he'd be the fastest running
back by far; faster than Big-10 sprint champion Michael Bennett. Faster
than LaDainian Tomlinson. Faster than Deuce McAllister.

Any idea what Simpson ran for a 40? I do. Try 4.5. If you don't believe
him ask. He said it shortly after he left USC.

"I must've missed something here," said Adams. "I spent some time this
spring with an Olympic sprinter, and we sat in a stadium together,
watching guys work out and talking about how the 40-yard dash times were
way overdone."

The sprinter was Dennis Mitchell. Yeah, THAT Dennis Mitchell. He and
Adams were together at the University of Florida, and when they heard
times of some of the guys they watched Mitchell said nothing. He just
shook his head.

"He was a little shocked," said Adams. "Being a great sprinter, he'd
never seen so many people running 4.1s and 4.2s. I've talked to (track
coach) Brooks Johnson and others who say, 'You football people are way
ahead of us.' Of course, they're facetious."

If Adams had his way, he'd rely more on times for shorter distances --
especially for offensive and defensive linemen. Make them stop running
40s and time them for 10s, maybe 20s. That's all they usually cover,
anyway.

"I could see it," said Cleveland's vice president in charge of football
operations, Dwight Clark. "But for running backs, wide receivers and
defensive backs, I'd like to see the 40 stay."

The Browns don't rely on others' times. They clock prospects themselves,
and if they don't, they don't have a record of them. The Browns never
timed anyone at 4.2. They never timed anyone at 4.3, either, though they
had the University of Arizona's Trung Canidate at 4.32 last year. I
wasn't at that workout, either, but I know something was wrong.

And here's why. The fastest starter I ever saw was sprinter Ben Johnson,
and at the 1988 Seoul Olympics track and field's fastest starter ran the
100 meters in a blistering 9.79 seconds, a time that later was
disallowed after Johnson tested positive for steroids. Know how fast he
covered the first 40? It was 4.69 seconds. Forty meters is approximately
44 yards, which means Johnson ran the first 40 in 4.26.

So, now, let's see if I have this straight: The chemically enhanced
Johnson, the fastest starter in track history, ran the fastest 100 in
history . only it was one-tenth of a second slower than Laveranues Coles
a year ago and three one-hundreths of a second ahead of Sanders' NFL
combine record.

It makes you wonder. It makes you wonder why anyone believes this stuff.

"I look at guys like Mean Joe Greene and Steve Van Buren and wonder how
many 4.3s those guys did," said Adams. "I think we've gotten to the
point where we've overdone the clock workout."

 

NFL.com says Dev ran 4.3's and Gay ran lower 4.3's. Clayton ran 4.5's

 

This and the posts that followed is the crap that eats my ass up. If you wanted it known about so damn much then why didn't you post a copy of the article yourself with a link to your site in the first place. It's not like it's your first trip to this site 1) with +300 posts and 2) Seeing it the same day he posted it.

If you want your work or site know then promote it yourself. Don't ride some guys ass b/c he fails to link the source.............

 

I did post the article here the day it got put on the net, and not one person replied to the thread.

When I get information from here and post it on other boards I say that I got it from here. Thats just what you're supposed to do. I posted one simple sentence, he's the one who provoked the rest.

 

i didnt provoke anything. i posted the damn article i read and forgot to post the link. sue me. I should have left the author off and not cited the source so then your response would have had merit but it didn't. you provoked it by responding but hey, do as you want. Hub hit it right on the head. I even praised your site after your comment. heh.

 

Furcal,

My general point being others aren't responsible for promoting it.

Anyway, I checked out your site looks pretty cool and informative. As a means of promotion why not ask Brett if he could link it from TF. It doesn't look like a "competitor" board so I don't see why it couldn't be done unless there are other issues. Of course you would have to reciprocate. If this does work I will be looking for my fee.........

To the point of the thread. IMO, if you run a sub 4.4 then you are a blazer. 4.4,4.3,4.2 doesn't matter no one is going to catch you.


As for Devery specifically. I've just got this feeling that he is going to be an outstanding pro. Being a receiver for only 2-3 years so far his development has been incredible. His hands have improved drastically and his route running as well. But what has impressed me most with him is his physical development. You can remember as a frosh he was a toothpick who could fly. Now he has put on some weight, I would guess 20 pounds of muscle from his frosh to senior yr, and looks to have still maintained his blazing speed. IMO, he will be a better pro than Clayton. I just think Clayton's speed is going to be a liability just like Reed's looks to have been so far.

 

You could have said "my bad I left off the link, I usually don't do that" and it would have been over.

 

And I may have gone a little overboard, I'm sorry, but this is about the 540004th time this has happened. I didn't mean to attack you specifically. Technically it is against the law to copy an entire digital intellectual property (i.e. articles from websites), what you're supposed to do is post a couple paragraphs and link it. Of course I'm not suing anyone over it, but it gets annoying when things like this happen all the time yet no one knows it came from your site that you put a lot of work into.