‘Bullet Bob’ instilled NFL’s need for speed
The NFL’s modern obsession with speed arguably began with Olympic sprint champion Bob Hayes, who was once “the world’s fastest human” and a good-enough pass catcher to last a decade with the Dallas Cowboys, averaging a tidy 20 yards per reception and helping them win Super Bowl V. Nobody remembers anyone catching “Bullet Bob” from behind.
Although Hayes was never asked to run the 40-yard dash — the reference standard for a man’s fleet-footedness today, which began being measured by the Cowboys’ personnel department in the early 1960s — he once was clocked in 5.28 over 60 yards on a cinder track. That translates into a sub 4-second 40, a time that even today no one believes is achievable.
The Cowboys’ front office was lauded after the fact for its genius, for recognizing Hayes’ potential as a deep-threat receiver when no other team did, but, remember, the Landry-SchrammBrandt team waited until the seventh round to draft him, never mind that there was a compelling precedent for a track star becoming a superb football player.
Does the name Ollie Matson ring a bell
Matson won two medals in the Helsinki Olympics in 1952 before being chosen in the first round by the Chicago Cardinals. He played 12 seasons, accumulating 12,884 net yards — rushing, receiving and returning — and, like Hayes, found his way into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Still, track athletes who have gone on to enjoy major success in the NFL have proved to be more rare than one might think, given the league’s obsession with speed, manifested by its obsession with 40-yard dash times.
“You’ve got to be a student of the game, not a track guy,” said the Texans’ newly minted Pro Bowler DeAndre Hopkins, whose non-head-turning combine time of 4.57 kept him — fortunately — on the draft board long enough for the Texans to snare him with the 27th pick in the 2013 draft. “You take a great football player over a guy who runs a 4.1. Route-running, being an athlete and finding a way to get open, is more important than anything.
“We have a saying where I’m from, ‘Either a guy’s a dog or he’s not a dog.’ That basically means he’s going to go up and get it or he’s not.”
Matson, in Hopkins’ parlance, was a dog through and through. Hayes, too. And, in the 1980s, another Olympian, Willie Gault, became Jim McMahon’s favorite deep threat on the Bears’ SuperBowl champion 1985 team.