Draft the three fastest players in NFL history

[CowboysFaninHouston]

Sorry, Ben Johnson never played NFL football ...

I should have said Chris Johnson

 

[RonnieT24]

I wonder who were supposedly the " fast-speed ' guys- in the 60's and very early 70's - AFL- NFL merger era ?
Bullet Bob Hayes and OJ Simpson are only ones that come to my mind.
i think Cliff Branch eventually came in the mid-70's

There were a lot of speed guys in the 60's and early 70's. Not as many as you see now but guys like Lance Alworth was a speedster.. And then there was a DB who was drafted in the NFL almost for the sole reason that he was one of the few people (maybe the only one) who had bested Bob Hayes in a 100 yard dash once in college. I can't remember his name right now. Cliff Branch was drafted in 1972. Greg Pruitt was also a speedster.. drafted by Cleveland out of Oklahoma in '73. Pruitt was so fast that he was probably the first player I can ever recall tearing an ACL and STILL being fast when he came back. Kenny Burrough was another WR from that era who could straight up burn! The avalanche of speedsters really kicked in in the late 70's though.. Guys like Johnny Lam Jones, Wesley Walker, Wes Chandler, James Lofton, Stanley Morgan, et al really changed the way the game was played during that era.

Teams started loading up on speedsters on the outside which meant defenses had to load up with speedsters on the corners as well. It's been an arms race of sorts ever since. Remember when Rice and Irvin started dominating everybody started getting bigger DBs.. Then offenses countered with smaller quick WRs.. which led to smaller quicker DBs which led to bigger receivers again.. which led to.... It just goes on and on!

 

[RonnieT24]

No, it wasn't limited to NFL. Maybe it was Superstars which it lists Herschel as winning twice. Maybe it was a 60 yard race as I seem to remember that Herschel was gaining on him and the announcers talking about what the results might be over longer distances.

Either way, I loved Herschel and wanted him to win the fastest man title but Green was just too explosive.

Herschel did win the Superstars a couple of times as I recall but I believe they always ran the 100 yard dash in that one.. But maybe they switched it up somewhere along the way. I admit I wasn't paying that much attention to those goofy things by then.. Probably because I was married with two little kids and trying to pay bills!!! LOL!

 

[beware_d-ware]

Deion should be in anyone's top 3. After that it gets tough.

I will say that Tyfreak Hill is the one guy who is plainly a step faster than anyone else playing in today's league, and Devin Hester was the same kind of dude a decade before him.

 

[TwentyOne]

1. Deion Sanders
2. Bo Jackson
3. Tyrek Hill

 

[DallasInDC]

Randy Moss
Deion Sanders
Bo Jackson

 

[DogFace]

Bo Jackson
Deion
Green

 

[Chocolate Lab]

A guy never mentioned in Ron Brown of the Rams. Won Olympic gold in the 4x100 and was stupid fast. He couldn't play WR but was a very good kickoff returner.

These things always get tricky though, because some super-fast guys played football at one time but were never any good. I mean Justin Gatlin played some football at UTenn, I believe. But does someone like that even count?

 

[TwentyOne]

Randy Moss
Deion Sanders
Bo Jackson

The best combination. Man how could i forget about Moss. I will change my pick in Hill to Moss.

 

[TwentyOne]

1. Deion Sanders
2. Bo Jackson
3. Tyrek Hill

I need to change my pick of Hill to Moss. I cant even explain myself how i could forget him.

1. Deion Sanders
2. Bo Jackson
3. Randy Moss

Now try to beat me fellas

 

[RonnieT24]

No speed list that excludes Bob Hayes can be given any credibility whatsoever.

 

[quickccc]

There were a lot of speed guys in the 60's and early 70's. Not as many as you see now but guys like Lance Alworth was a speedster.. And then there was a DB who was drafted in the NFL almost for the sole reason that he was one of the few people (maybe the only one) who had bested Bob Hayes in a 100 yard dash once in college. I can't remember his name right now. Cliff Branch was drafted in 1972. Greg Pruitt was also a speedster.. drafted by Cleveland out of Oklahoma in '73. Pruitt was so fast that he was probably the first player I can ever recall tearing an ACL and STILL being fast when he came back. Kenny Burrough was another WR from that era who could straight up burn! The avalanche of speedsters really kicked in in the late 70's though.. Guys like Johnny Lam Jones, Wesley Walker, Wes Chandler, James Lofton, Stanley Morgan, et al really changed the way the game was played during that era.

Teams started loading up on speedsters on the outside which meant defenses had to load up with speedsters on the corners as well. It's been an arms race of sorts ever since. Remember when Rice and Irvin started dominating everybody started getting bigger DBs.. Then offenses countered with smaller quick WRs.. which led to smaller quicker DBs which led to bigger receivers again.. which led to.... It just goes on and on!

- Such as the Marks Brothers - especially Mark Duper who was known as a track sprinter that translated it into the playing field.
And there was some 80's guys like Phillip Epps and Ron Brown, but they were more track guys trying to play as NFL WR's.

- Ditto with Willie Gault, in the early 80's who knew go-fly routes and curls, but nuthin' much more to his game. Average WR.

- Al Davis kept coming with the jet-fast WRs, but they were practically average or below average WRs Cliff Barnes, James Jett, Darius Heyward Bey

- Then came certain offenses which specialized in those the quick WRs, but not neccesarily jet- fast WRs The Three Amigos (Vance, Nattiel, Jackson)
... Houston Oilers Run and Shoot, ..Greatest Show on Turf ... Buffalo's K- Gun ..etc.

 

[quickccc]

No speed list that excludes Bob Hayes can be given any credibility whatsoever.

+1

- He won gold medals in the Olympics fastest sprint races, place himself in the Olympic record books and change and evolutionized the game in the NFL with how opposing
defenses had to defend him, ..ala zone defenses.

- I wasn't able to see Bullet Bob personally play in the 60's, and thankfully i have YouTube films that helps me have a visual way of seeing how he embarrassed man coverage
on a frequent basis in the 60's.

- Otherwise Hayes not only did competed in football as the fastest human alive, but he was also the fastest human alive vs the World's Finest.

 

[jterrell]

Most of these aren't close to accurate.

Most of these guys have Olympic track times. Those are official... or at least unofficial because they were wind-aided as in case of Tyreek Hill.
Sam Hines ran a 9.68 100M in 1965.
Jeff Demps ran a 10.01 in 2008. He also set a national HS record.
Bob Hayes and Ron Brown both ran 10.06.

It is nearly impossible to compare guys without Olympic times.
Darrell Green beat two Olympic medalists and is arguably the fastest 30-year NFL player to have ever existed.
But it hard to say what his best time ever was. Rumored 4.09 40 is likely inaccurate/flawed.

Tyreek Hill is the fastest actual football player current day. His 40 didn't touch John Ross' but on any track today Hill would dog walk Ross.

Deion was a legit 4.2 40 guy but what made him special was that was also his walking around speed. He didn't have to train for months solely on speed to get to it, he just ran it may given day.
Deion had a world-class speed coach and he just trained it non-stop with no specific race dates in mind.
That type of training has taken his toll on his body as he aged.

 

[RonnieT24]

+1

- He won gold medals in the Olympics fastest sprint races, place himself in the Olympic record books and change and evolutionized the game in the NFL with how opposing
defenses had to defend him, ..ala zone defenses.

- I wasn't able to see Bullet Bob personally play in the 60's, and thankfully i have YouTube films that helps me have a visual way of seeing how he embarrassed man coverage
on a frequent basis in the 60's.

- Otherwise Hayes not only did competed in football as the fastest human alive, but he was also the fastest human alive vs the World's Finest.

The fascinating thing about Bob Hayes is that folks remember his world record 10.05 at the Tokyo games and think "well lots of people have run faster than that since then.." Which is true. What they don't take into account is that the Tokyo Olympics in '64 were the last to be run on a cinder track. For those not familiar, cinder tracks were basically dirt with some fine rocks mixed in. That crap likely robbed Hayes of at least a half second of his speed. Translation: peak Bob Hayes on modern surfaces might have run the 100 meters in 9.5 or 9.6 that day. Absolutely incredible. I have some experience with this having run on cinder tracks in college career. My times on cinder tracks were easily a half a second slower than what I could do on modern surfaces like Tartan. So a 11.0 one week on a modern surface would turn into 11.5 the next week on cinders without my changing a thing. On world class sprinters the difference might have been even greater.

During the late 60's and early 70's they had what was called the "Professional Track and Field" circuit. Because it Track and Field was still trying to pretend to be an "amateur sport" back then none of the performances guy achieved back then were ever recognized. I recall watching Bob Hayes beat John Carlos and Jimmy Ray Hines (silver medalist and gold medalist in Mexico 100 in 1968) in the 100 meters as a lad. And his time was sub 10 seconds. In fact I believe his time was faster than the world record Hines had set at the Mexico Olympics. But because it was "professional" it was not sanctioned and never ratified. Ironically there was at least one publication that gave Hayes credit for the times he achieved on that circuit but I was a kid and cannot remember if it was Track and Field News or The Guinness Book of World Records. Either way I do vaguely remember reading that Bullet had at least one recorded time of under 10.0 in the 100 meters.. several years AFTER he started playing in the NFL. I tend to think of him as a sort of evolutionary leap as far as sprint speed is concerned. He was way ahead of his time.

 

[RonnieT24]

Most of these aren't close to accurate.

Most of these guys have Olympic track times. Those are official... or at least unofficial because they were wind-aided as in case of Tyreek Hill.
Sam Hines ran a 9.68 100M in 1965.
Jeff Demps ran a 10.01 in 2008. He also set a national HS record.
Bob Hayes and Ron Brown both ran 10.06.

It is nearly impossible to compare guys without Olympic times.
Darrell Green beat two Olympic medalists and is arguably the fastest 30-year NFL player to have ever existed.
But it hard to say what his best time ever was. Rumored 4.09 40 is likely inaccurate/flawed.

Tyreek Hill is the fastest actual football player current day. His 40 didn't touch John Ross' but on any track today Hill would dog walk Ross.

Deion was a legit 4.2 40 guy but what made him special was that was also his walking around speed. He didn't have to train for months solely on speed to get to it, he just ran it may given day.
Deion had a world-class speed coach and he just trained it non-stop with no specific race dates in mind.
That type of training has taken his toll on his body as he aged.

I assume this was a typo? Nobody ran that fast in the 1960's and the only Hines who was among the world's best sprinters during that era was Jimmy Ray Hines, who ran 9.95 at the Mexico Olympics but that time is always viewed with some skepticism because it was achieved at altitude. Though to be honest I'm not sure how much difference that makes in sprinting. But that time was a good deal faster than any other time Hines ever recorded.

And there has never been a 30 year NFL player.. Darrell Green did play for 20 years though. I think Jerry Rice did as well. And I think a few kickers have survived that long.. Then there's Tom Brady... Who is shooting for 25 years I think..

 

[Zekeats]

If randy moss on a not on your list it’s a big void for me.

 

[RonnieT24]

If randy moss on a not on your list it’s a big void for me.

Remember that game in Oakland when Terence Newman run Moss down from behind? I bet you he does..

 

[RonnieT24]

Remember that game in Oakland when Terence Newman run Moss down from behind? I bet you he does..

In case you didn't see it. -

Bummer..

 

[Zekeats]

In case you didn't see it. -

Bummer..

Your talking about the Oakland years? Come on man. Remember the 150 times he out ran everyone?