Bucs RB Jeff Demps - Fastest Player In The NFL?

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Jeff Demps focusing only on football
Posted by Josh Alper on April 23, 2014

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Last month, Buccaneers coach Lovie Smith said he was excited to coach the fastest guy in the NFL.

Smith was referring to running back Jeff Demps and his previous coaches never got much of a chance to actually coach him because Demps was splitting his time between football and track. Demps’ choice paid off with a silver medal in the 2012 Summer Olympics, but his track focus didn’t leave much time for football. Demps played two games for the Bucs last year and didn’t play for the Patriots in the 2012 regular season, which makes him largely an unknown on the gridiron at the professional level.

Smith and the Bucs will get Demps’ full attention this year, though. Roy Cummings of the Tampa Tribune reports that Demps said that he is putting his track career on hold for the foreseeable future and concentrate only on his football career.

Kick returns are one obvious spot to look for Demps to make a contribution to the Bucs in what will be his first real shot at turning his speed into a regular role at the professional level.



The Fastest 40 Yard Dash Ever
By: Chad Wilson @Gridironstuds


Football fans across America continue to obsess over the most simple drill in the game of football. Is there anything more discussed than the 40 yard dash? Every Spring, this drill takes center stage and undoubtedly the question is asked 1,o00′s of times. What’s the fastest 40 yard dash?

Just as sure as you get the question asked 1,000 times, you will get dozens of ridiculous answers. For starters, let’s find out why the 40 yard dash? When and why did 40 yards become so significant? It started in the 1960′s with the NFL team that had the most developed and comprehensive scouting department and that was the Dallas Cowboys. Prior to this time period, NFL coaches chose the 50 yard dash as the mark of measure to determine a player speed worthiness. In 1960, Gil Brandt, the director scouting for the Cowboys along with his department came up with the 40/20/10 measurement. The 40 was used for all players. The 20 yard split time of the 40 was of great significance for linemen since the thought was that they rarely run 40 yards in a game. The 10 yard split was important for wide receivers as a measure of their burst off of the line of scrimmage. With this, a drill was born and almost 50 years later, it has become the center piece of info on a prospective high school, college or professional football player.

So who had the fastest 40 yard dash ever? Research confirmed what I already knew and that there is no way to really tell. Here are some important things to know about the 40 yard dash:

- A hand time (use of a stop watch) will usually be faster than an electronic time

– There are two types of electronic times:

1. When a watch is started by a coach and an electronic beam records the time when it picks up the player crossing the end point

2. When an electronic beam picks up the movement of a player from the start and starts the clock. An electronic beam also detects the player at the end point and stops the clock. This time will be slower than version #1 and even slower than a hand time in which a coach starts his stop watch when he sees the player begin the run and then stops the watch when he sees the player cross the finish line.

- An accurtrack time will be the slowest of all. Accutrack is what is used at track meets. The clock in accu-track timing starts when the starter’s pistol is shot. The runner’s time for the event is recorded digitally when the technology detects the player crossing the finish line.

Studies have shown that that average reaction time by a human to a starter’s pistol is .25 seconds. For this reason, anyone who compares a 40 yard split time in a 100 meter event and compares it to reported hand timed 40 yard dash marks is making a big mistake. If you want compare the 40 yard split of a runner in a 100 meter event, subtract .25 seconds from the recorded time. So, Olympic runner Justin Gatlin’s 4.42 forty yard dash split recorded during his Gold Medal winning 9.85 100 meter run, would convert to a 4.17 forty yard dash by football standards.

After much research a few things have come up over and over and over. These things plus my own two eyes would lead me to believe that Darrell Green, Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders were the fastest football players to ever play the game.

It has been said consistently that Darrell Green recorded a time of 4.09 at the Washington Redskins’ training camp in 1986. That’s a hard time to swallow but Green’s obvious speed has been put on display many times while he was in the NFL. Green ran down from significant distances two of the fastest running backs to play in the NFL (Tony Dorsett and Eric Dickerson). Green has said in interviews that the fastest time he has ever been aware of running is 4.15. To his credit, Green does have a verifiable and official time of 10.08 in the 100 meters while he was a college student at Texas A&I University. If anyone could run a sub 4.1 forty, it was Darrell Green.

Many sources report a 4.12 forty yard dash time for Bo Jackson and if you watched him turn the corner and run down the sidelines in 1987 versus the Seattle Seahawks, you would not doubt any time reported by this freak of nature. Repetition does not make it a fact but if enough sources have reported this time to make me believe it. Jackson has an official 10.39 time in the 100 meter dash in college.

Deion Sanders has the closest thing of the three as a verifiable 40 yard dash time. Sanders ran a 4.21 forty yard dash at the 1989 NFL combine and kept right on going through the finish line into the first round of that year’s NFL draft. Like Green and Jackson, anyone who watched Sanders play would have little trouble believing that Sanders pulled off this feat. Sanders recorded a 10.21 100 meter mark while at Florida St.

Of course there are scores of reported 40 yard dash times that have made the rounds on the Internet. Some are ridiculous like the 3.9′s attached to a couple of players and some 4 flats that were attached to some others.

Here are some of the problems with reported 40 yard dash times from team workouts. Some times you can’t be sure that the distance run was indeed 40 yards. There’s always the chance that the distance was not properly marked. When teams do individual private workouts for teams, often times the scout has not brought the necessary tool to mark off the distance. There’s also the chance that player’s will cheat the distance. I have first hand knowledge of a player starting in front of the starting point to run a forty, fully taking advantage of the fact that there was only one scout on hand and that he could not tell if the player was indeed starting at the correct mark. Another problem is the angle of the surface. There are plenty of practice fields across the country that have a slope. Coaches see great value in having their players run on a slight decline to record eye popping times. Savvy scouts will insist that players run up one way and then down the other. An average of the two times is taken to get the most accurate time. One other problem is that some players run the 40 yard dash with cleats on grass while other places have their players run on a synthetic track with spikes on. Guess who would record the fastest time.

In my personal experiences, I have seen some sub 4.3 forty yard dashes in my time. Kevin Williams of the University of Miami (1989-92) ran a 4.28 forty yard dash before my own eyes. Former Hurricanes Tremain Mack (4.25) and Al Shipman (4.27) ran sub 4.3 forties before my own eyes. Track star Henry Neal recorded a 4.20 forty yard dash before my own eyes in a workout for the Miami Dolphins in 1996. The Dolphins did not sign Neal since his football background was quite limited. I never watched him run an actual 40 yard dash but after having to cover him in training camp, I am inclined to believe every second of Joey Galloway’s reported 4.18 forty yard dash.

One player that is not on the list is Bob Hayes of the Dallas Cowboys. No doubt, Hayes was one of the fastest men, if not the fastest man to put on an NFL uniform. However, as it relates to the 40 yard dash, I could find no time recorded for this Olympic Gold medalist. Hayes has the fastest 100 meter time for an NFL player at 10.05. Should current Florida Gator Jeffery Demps make it to the NFL for any significant amount of time, he will own the fastest time at 10.01. Demps ran this as a high schooler and owns the national prep record for the event.

The fastest recorded 40 yard split on record belongs to Olympian Maurice Greene. During his World Record 60 meter run of 6.33, a mark that still exists, Green crossed the 40 yard mark at 4.18. Remembering that .25 seconds must be subtracted from that time due to Accu-track timing and you come up with a 40 yard dash time of 3.93 seconds. What’s the problem with that time? It was run on an indoor track with spikes on giving the runner an advantage over the football players who have run on grass with cleats.

In an effort to centralize all the reported 40 yard dash times. I will start what we call the SUB 4.3 Club. I will attempt to keep a running record of the sub 4.3 forty yard dashes and their owners in this list. I will refrain from adding times of the ridiculous and will do some research on all times that qualify. I will say one thing, can you web surfers stop reporting that Deion Sanders ran a 4.57 forty yard dash backwards. That’s just flat out ridiculous.

Enjoy the following list of reported (and somewhat believable) 40 yard dashes run under 4.3 seconds. We will continue to add on to this list over time. Did I miss someone? Comment on this article and make your case. Please do not quote high school forty yard dash times. Nothing against them, let’s just stick to college and pro football right now.

Listings in bold are new ones added since last update.

The Official Unofficial Sub 4.3 Forty Yard Dash List at Gridironstuds.com

1 Bo Jackson /Auburn Tigers/ 4.12
2 Michael Bennett/ Minnesota Vikings/ 4.13
3 Alexander Wright/ Dallas Cowboys/ 4.14
4 Darrell Green/ Washington Redskins/ 4.15
5 Ahman Green/ Nebraska Cornhuskers/ 4.17
6 Joey Galloway/ Ohio St. Buckeyes/ 4.18
7 Terrell Sinkfield/ Northern Iowa/ 4.19
8 Henry Neal/ Blinn JC/ 4.2
9 Onterio McCalebb/ Auburn Tigers/ 4.21
10 Deion Sanders/ Florida St. Seminoles/ 4.21
11 Kevin Curtis/ Utah St. Aggies/ 4.21
12 Don Beebe/ Buffalo Bills/ 4.21
13 Donte Stallworth/ Tennessee Volunteers/ 4.22
14 Willie Parker/ North Carolina Tar Heels/ 4.23
15 Clayton Holmes/ Dallas Cowboys/ 4.23
16 Rondel Melendez/ Eastern Kentucky/ (1999) 4.24
17 Chris Johnson/ East Carolina Pirates/ 4.24
18 Taylor Mays/ USC/ 4.24
19 Marquis Goodwin/ Texas Longhorns/ 4.25
20 Tavon Austin/ West Virginia/ 4.25
21 Steve Williams/ California/ 4.25
22 Ike Taylor/ Pittsburgh Steelers/ 4.25
23 Randy Moss/ Marshall University/ 4.25
24 Michael Vick/ Virginia Tech Hokies/ 4.25
25 Jerome Mathis/ Hampton/ 4.25
26 Sam Shields/ University of Miami/ (Packers) 4.25
27 Dri Archer/ Kent St./ 4.26
28 Devin Hester/ University of Miami/ 4.27
29 Darren McFadden/ Arkansas Razorbacks/ 4.27
30 James Jett/ West Virginia/ 4.27
31 Jacoby Ford/ Clemson Tigers/ 4.27
32 Trindon Holliday/ LSU/ 4.27
33 DeMarcus Van Dyke/ University of Miami/ 4.28
34 Kevin Williams/ University of Miami/ 4.28
35 Champ Bailey/ Georgia Bulldogs/ 4.28
36 CJ Spiller/ Clemson Tigers/ 4.28
37 Raghib Ismail/ Notre Dame Fighting Irish/ 4.28
38 Walter Sutton/ SW Minnesota St./ 4.28
39 Rod Woodson/ Purdue Boilermakers/ 4.28
40 Standord Routt/ University of Houston (2005)/ 4.29
41 Fabian Washington/ Nebraska Cornhuskers/ 4.29
42 Laveranues Coles/ Florida St. Seminoles/ 4.29
43 James Williams/ Fresno St./4.29
44 Gaston Green/ UCLA/ 4.29
45 Johnny Knox/ Abiliene Christian (Chi. Bears)/ 4.29
 

-X-

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You forgot to highlight Alexander Wright. He played a half dozen games or so for the Rams in 95-96.
What a dud.

I remember him because he was a 15 speed on Madden (Sega).
 

ramsince62

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You forgot to highlight Alexander Wright. He played a half dozen games or so for the Rams in 95-96.
What a dud.

I remember him because he was a 15 speed on Madden (Sega).

Yup, there it is, these stats are fine, but what really matters, is how (or whether) any of this translates to the game.
 

CGI_Ram

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I wish there were stats in pads.

There are a ton of guys who play faster than their 40, and a ton of guys (Trung Candidate) who ran a fast 40 but it didn't translate to the field.
 

jap

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I wish there were stats in pads.

There are a ton of guys who play faster than their 40, and a ton of guys (Trung Candidate) who ran a fast 40 but it didn't translate to the field.

That will only happen when the NFL treats the combine more like a football extravaganza and less like a track & field meet.