About 6 or 7 years ago Sport Illustrated had a article about the bogus 40 yard dash times the NFL were claiming the athletes were running. Dudes running sub 4.2's in the 40 yard dash FAT is pure bullshit. In track and field races, the runner must react to the starting gun, which can take 0.10 to 0.20 seconds. For electronically timed 40 yard dashes, the runner is allowed to start when he wishes, and a timer hand-starts the clock (after a reaction time that is often considered to average 0.24 seconds when a starter reacts to the smoke of the starting gun).
So mf gonna tell me that on perfect day, perfect start, perfect track and a mf who who had the best reaction time ever in the history that NFL players with heavy ass cleats on and have the advantage of starting when they want to start can battle with the top 100 meter athletes in the world...is so then why hasnt the NFL created the NFL track club and set world records
I went to U of Tenn and i have watch many scouts and football combines at school. And when they time th e 40 they don't have to wear cleats, most of them wear track spikes. and true they can start when ever they want to, but the timers go off of when your hand leaves the ground. You are right though, there is a margin for error with hand times. I have also seen many track guys go out there and run run 4.0 or 4.1. since they were probably just walk on on the football team or haven't played since high school, they make them run it at least 3 times because they don't believe someone is that fast. Especially someone they never heard of. One of my frat brother got on with the falcons that way. he ran track all four years and his fourth year he walked on the football team. he didn't play much, but got the opportunity to try out based of his combine performance. He did play much with Atalanta, but he was able to last 4 years with them.