This team seems to hate WRs with 4.4 or better speed

[Pass2Run]

Wrong.

Gallup is a 4.4 guy.

 

[CowboyFrog]

Strictly an open field player. Turpin would get swallowed at the LOS when jammed. And they'd jam him a lot.

Motion....you put Turpin in motion, try and get a saftey or even LB switched to him and get him the ball....not 10 times but 2 or 3 times a game you should try and see if it works. It would only take 1 play the defense shifts wrong and he is gone.

 

[Cowboysheelsreds053]

Motion....you put Turpin in motion, try and get a saftey or even LB switched to him and get him the ball....not 10 times but 2 or 3 times a game you should try and see if it works. It would only take 1 play the defense shifts wrong and he is gone.

This, why I said get creative, not hard.

 

[Pass2Run]

Jerry Rice ran a 4.7....

I ran a 4.5 in high school, and never even played in college.

 

[Doomsday101]

So far Turpin has been on 25 snaps on offense this season. Main reason he is here is special teams, as he gains more experience I hope to see him get opportunities but until then his job is as a return man and is doing a good job for the Cowboys

 

[quickccc]

There aren't any.. But that doesn't mean there shouldn't be. Yes Turpin is small.. tiny even.. however you watch guys trying to get a hand on him when he's returning kicks and you can clearly see he has the ability and agility to avoid people getting hands on him. Remove the ball under his arm from the equation and he gains even greater capability in that regard. No one is calling for him to be getting 50 snaps a game at receiver.. But 5-10 plays a game is not unreasonable. If only to have him sprint down the field and see if a safety can stay with him.. All you need is tape of him blowing by the free safety one time and the work will be done even if the pass is not completed. From that point on he will be getting a 15 yard cushion every time he comes in at receiver. If Dak sees a defender that far off raise up and sling it to him and take the cheap 8-10 yards.

As for the training camp and preseason comparison.. Have you noticed a ton of difference in how well the other teams' coverage units contain him vs what we saw in preseason? Aside from kicking it out of the end zone or having him get taken down by his own man there hasn't been much indication that what he did in the preseason was drastically different from what we're seeing against live bullets.

Returning punts- kicks is a different matter than lining up In formation as a WR and having to defeat press jams and contested coverages.

As a returner, he has blockers in front and run lanes set up for him in the open field as a returner.

As a receiver, he's much more on his own as an individual receiver. And not every play and route he has is gonna be going against air.

 

[cnuball21]

Something to keep in mind is that guys who are stupid fast have probably been stupid fast all their lives and as such have never really been forced to fully learn to play receiver.. That's true even if they've played football their entire lives.. They've been able to run by people as long as they can remember so the need to develop as a route runner, coverage reader etc just really hasn't been there. Guy who have not possessed that kind of speed have had to work on different things to get to this level. That's why those guys tend to have longer careers than one trick pony types. D-Jax is sort of the exception but he's bounced around on half the teams in the league by now.. which should tell you something..

Good point, and probably some truth to this.

 

[OmerV]

T williams, m Gallup, c lamb. All 4.51s. Or 4.52. Cooper was a 4.4. But they didn’t send him deep a lot. Tolbert runs4.49 he’s in the bench. Simi runs 4.4 he so on the bench. Turpin looks 4.3 ish. He doesn’t see the field in offense

Speed is certainly an asset, and obviously there has to be some degree of speed, but being a good receiver is the bigger key.

Hands, quickness, route running, instincts, body control etc ... Cooper Kupp has all that, and he ran a 4.62 at the combine.

Granted, 4.62 is rare for a top receiver, but it does illustrate that there is a lot more to the position that pure speed.

 

[quickccc]

Something to keep in mind is that guys who are stupid fast have probably been stupid fast all their lives and as such have never really been forced to fully learn to play receiver.. That's true even if they've played football their entire lives.. They've been able to run by people as long as they can remember so the need to develop as a route runner, coverage reader etc just really hasn't been there. Guy who have not possessed that kind of speed have had to work on different things to get to this level. That's why those guys tend to have longer careers than one trick pony types. D-Jax is sort of the exception but he's bounced around on half the teams in the league by now.. which should tell you something..

Depends upon the receiver, imo

Dez Bryant was never sprinter speed fast, nor was he technically masterful at route running ala Cris Carter, Fitzgerald or Antwann Boulding, but he was so overwhelmingly
equipped with a combination of strength/power, explosive leaping ability, graceful contouring agility and eye hands coordination, that he relied so much on those physical attributes,
that he did not think he had to work extremely diligently on his route running game.

He could always just out-physical, out leap and out-twist over his opposing CBs, ..until his separation skills declined, and it became too many contested balls and even the average CBs could
easily handled him.
And once a WR cannot separate and get himself open for the QB in the NFL ... " Bye, Felicia !! "

 

[RonnieT24]

Returning punts- kicks is a different matter than lining up In formation as a WR and having to defeat press jams and contested coverages.

As a returner, he has blockers in front and run lanes set up for him in the open field as a returner.

As a receiver, he's much more on his own as an individual receiver. And not every play and route he has is gonna be going against air.

I can tell you from personal experience that a guy with sub 4.3 speed and kick return ability has the ability to avoid jams. Guys who can't run with you have to be brave enough to come up and play press coverage running the risk of missing and watching the receiver high stepping into the end zone. It's not like the receiver has to just run up to the DB and let him press. Every play won't be against air.. but the DB isn't going to get hands on him every time. We don't need him to win 20 times a game.. 1 or 2 will do just fine.

 

[Kingofholland]

T williams, m Gallup, c lamb. All 4.51s. Or 4.52. Cooper was a 4.4. But they didn’t send him deep a lot. Tolbert runs4.49 he’s in the bench. Simi runs 4.4 he so on the bench. Turpin looks 4.3 ish. He doesn’t see the field in offense

Straight line speed is nice to have but there's so much more that goes into being a great NFL WR. Larry Fitz and Jerry Rice both ran sub 4.6s and obviously had outstanding careers. I would say route running, short area quickness, and hands are much more important than running straight 1/10 second faster in shorts.

 

[Kingofholland]

You're actually dead wrong about this.. Go watch a world class 100 meter dash sometime and see how far apart the runners are even though their times are separated by mere hundredths of a second. A tenth of a second at top speed for these guys is more like 1-2 yards than a few inches as you characterize it. Take a look at this picture.



In it you see Usain Bolt winning the 100 meter dash at 9.81. Now look at the last place guy's time. It's 10.06. A difference of .25 seconds. Does that look like a few inches difference to you? It look more like 2-3 yards to me. Gatlin is .08 seconds behind and though he might be able to reach out and touch Bolt he is straining so hard he'd probably fall over if he did. The third place guy is exactly 0.1 seconds behand Bolt at 9.91. He is easily a yard behind. And mind you at this point all the guys are slowing down because their bodies have been in oxygen debt for the last 30-40 meters of the race. At top speed they were running faster and the difference between them for every tick of the clock was greater.

I would like to see these guys play football in pads.

 

[RonnieT24]

Speed is certainly an asset, and obviously there has to be some degree of speed, but being a good receiver is the bigger key.

Hands, quickness, route running, instincts, body control etc ... Cooper Kupp has all that, and he ran a 4.62 at the combine.

Granted, 4.62 is rare for a top receiver, but it does illustrate that there is a lot more to the position that pure speed.

I think it's a mistake to take the combine times as gospel. A lot of guys go to some speed training bootcamp and train like they're trying to make the Olympic team for 3 months leading up to the combine.. and then get drafted too high based on their combine time, make a ton of money and never train that way again. Cooper Kupp was never a burner so he probably didn't go to any pre-Olympic bootcamp so his time was probably more indicative of his real football speed as compared to guys who go train like a sprinter to run 4.45 but really are basically just 4.6 guys the rest of their careers.

 

[RonnieT24]

I would like to see these guys play football in pads.

No you wouldn't.. most of them struggle mightily trying to carry pads..

 

[Cowboysheelsreds053]

You put Turpin out wide and the corner will back off a little because of that fear factor. If they move up to try to jam him and miss as long as the QB delivers the ball it could be all over but the crying.

 

[quickccc]

I can tell you from personal experience that a guy with sub 4.3 speed and kick return ability has the ability to avoid jams.

Guys who can't run with you have to be brave enough to come up and play press coverage running the risk of missing and watching the receiver high stepping into the end zone. It's not like the receiver has to just run up to the DB and let him press. Every play won't be against air.. but the DB isn't going to get hands on him every time. We don't need him to win 20 times a game.. 1 or 2 will do just fine.

Now understand we're talking about at the NFL level of competition, ...not Semi-pro or Arena League....

And yet again ..please show me in the NFL where a 152 pound guy with sub 4.3 speed and return ability is avoiding jams.
In addition to sub 4.3 speed, those types guy has got to have some kinda decent " play strength" to factor in helping him win battles as a receiver.

It's a reason why we just don't see or recall any at that size in the pass game in today's NFL

Trindon Holiday (no longer in NFL?) along with Hakim Grant (cleveland) may still be along the smallest WR speed bugs in the NFL, but they were limited to special teams work.
Holiday was 5'5, 166, ..and Jakeem Grant (on IR) was 5'6, 170. Both were well noted as elite returners.

I'd have to YouTube Jakeem Grant to see if/how Browns occasionally used him in the pass game as a WR.

 

[pancakeman]

All or nothing, knee jerk type of OP

Probably so. But the replies that take "Cowboys don't play enough fast receivers" to mean "I think anybody fast is an excellent receiver" are also guilty of some black-and-white thinking.

 

[pancakeman]

You're actually dead wrong about this.. Go watch a world class 100 meter dash sometime and see how far apart the runners are even though their times are separated by mere hundredths of a second. A tenth of a second at top speed for these guys is more like 1-2 yards than a few inches as you characterize it. Take a look at this picture.



In it you see Usain Bolt winning the 100 meter dash at 9.81. Now look at the last place guy's time. It's 10.06. A difference of .25 seconds. Does that look like a few inches difference to you? It look more like 2-3 yards to me. Gatlin is .08 seconds behind and though he might be able to reach out and touch Bolt he is straining so hard he'd probably fall over if he did. The third place guy is exactly 0.1 seconds behand Bolt at 9.91. He is easily a yard behind. And mind you at this point all the guys are slowing down because their bodies have been in oxygen debt for the last 30-40 meters of the race. At top speed they were running faster and the difference between them for every tick of the clock was greater.

Oh, sorry, he forgot to mention this is also assuming the 4.5 guy has 4.5-foot arms.

 

[TwentyOne]

The days of Rocket and Galloway were pretty horrible. Great speed though

Seriously Galloway had a pretty good career with us.
The team sucked thou

 

[3rdEyewarrior]

No QB to throw them the football after Aikman retired.

True. Q carter wasn’t great.