RollTide said:
Running the 40 is not mandatory at pro-day.
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It is mandatory for a player who will be drafted high in large part because of his superior athleticism. Why would Vince not be prepared to run? Did he expect to not run at all before the draft? This is a guy who is supposed to be one of the great athletes ever to come out at that position but he had no desire to run and still has not done any lifting, jumping or any other activity.
Hey he doesn't have to participate in any of these drills, the reason he does participate is to get drafted higher.. If he was not properly prepared to run that's his problem.
For one thing... please, anyone who questions Vince's running abilities is a complete and utter fool. His running prowess has as much to do with his size, his acceleration/deceleration, and is freaky Matrix-time warp elusiveness than it does to pure speed (as measured in a timed 40). Like a good bull fighter, he has a god given knack for making people miss, sometimes by centimeters; and when they do manage to land a hand on him, he has the size to brush it off.
I would hope that pro scouts would have enough sense to realize this.
Will Reggie run the 40 for his pro day? Will Matt? Don't they both have something to prove, Reggie being called the fastest man to play the game and Matt's only real knock is his perceived lack of elusiveness (which he denies)? Shouldn't they have to justify their lofty predraft positions?
As far as why Vince ran, the reports I've seen chalk it up to competitiveness. Vince saw his teammates warming up and running, they started egging him on, likely some scouts started egging him on, and with the gauntlet thrown down, he has to take up the challenge. I doubt it had anything to do with his "management" aside from the fact that they couldn't stop him.
And contrary to what's being speculated here, reports from workouts after the RoseBowl (but before he had hired Rhome) said that Vince had been working on running the 40, quoting him as saying he was stuck around the 4.4 level and he was trying to break into the 4.3's. Obviously he didn't make that and I bet he was pretty disappointed that his time wasn't better.
But knocking a 6-5 230+ QB for running a mid 4.5 is like knocking Cindy Crawford for having a mole. Knocking him for not doing the vertical jump or broad jump is just as absurd. If I'm choosing sides for a pickup Basketball game and have to choose between Young, Leinart, Bush or Cutler, there's little doubt who I'm gonna pick. :winker: