Olympic medalist helps football players prepare for Scouting Combine
As if anyone needed more proof of the disconnect between football and the underwear Olympics known as the Scouting Combine, the Associated Press explains that Olympic medalist Ato Boldon has been teaching incoming rookies to do something that they’ll do on a football field only when something really good is happening, or when something really bad is happening.
Run in a straight line.
“I am basically turning football players into sprinters for a while,” Boldon said.
Boldon got involved three years ago, and he wasn’t impressed with what he initially saw. “My first thought: ‘Oh my God, these guys are awful,’” Boldon said. “It was 95 percent their technique. It was bad. And I said, ‘Now I understand why they want to bring me on board.’
“At the Combine last year, my guys did not look like the others,” Boldon added. “By the end of the Combine, I have the fastest guys.”
Boldon’s guys included cornerback Patrick Peterson, who covered 40 yards in 4.34 seconds.
But that’s why the results of the Scouting Combine can be so deceptive. Guys are evaluated based on how they run without pads or opponents or a ball in the air or anything else that bridges the Grand Canyon between track and field and the football field.
That’s why a guy’s time in the 40-yard dash is simply one piece of a much more complex puzzle that can’t reliably be solved unless and until we see what these guys can do when they’re lined up against the best that college football has had to offer over the last decade, or longer.
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From what I understand you need a baseline speed time to compare everyone with, so why not 40 yards? It’s a fair test of how fast you can accelerate from nothing and reach top speed . So if you run a fast 40, chances are you will be fast in a 20 or a 60 yard dash as well. Maybe the media should tell us about the agility test around the cones more and add that time to the 40 for a more meaningful number.
They should make them go through the combine in Pads… No contract drills, but make them do the 40, and all other tests in pads.
They wear them on Sunday.
Have them do the bench press, then let them play flag football for 3-4 hours. That’ll show just as much as the individual combine events.
I think it’s a great thing to teach kids. Certainly most football runners do not run a straight line, but learning the from until it is a instinct can only help them. Even if only in certain situations. I have often wondered why so much was put on the 40 times. I think it is for break away speed or seperation maybe. But how quick you cover the first 4 to 7 yards in pads has always been the most important unless your a wide receiver and even then. The best running backs in history were never the fastest guys on the team. Earl Campbell, Barry Sanders, Emmitt Smith are just a few. Fast yes but not speedsters.
Why bother wearing pads? Do you really think some guys are that much slower in pads than another guy? Pads pretty much affect everyone equally, plus, a lot of guys don’t wear thigh pads anymore- and don’t you think guys would just wear the smallest pads possible? So are you going to dictate the size of the pads too? Once again, you just need a baseline where everything is the same for everyone.
It is a somewhat useful test although running it in pads would make much more sense, after all the reason behind the 40 is because that was the average distance of a punt. It was a means of testing if someone could cover punts or not.
So let me get this straight…an organization that generates billions of dollars in revenue and is seeking to determine a manner in which to determine 200 or so top college football players (not the top athletes) still uses the sprint, the broad jump, and the vertical leap to determine their ability as athletes. Transfer a million bones worth of bobble head sales to the dudes at Mythbusters and come up with some real world applicable tests you cheap bastards. A sprint through resistance pads, a broad jump with a 250 lb resistance band, a brick wall to run through, that sort of thing.
yes i said determine 3 times in one sentence…bourbon has its effects.