Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

The common story is Paul Brown used 40 yards because of special teams, how long/far you go on coverage. I cannot remember the reference, mayb John Madden, on air or in books, or Paul Zimmerman, or elsewhere.

Jack Faulkner had a similar view, that football is a '40 yard game' but didn't seem to limit to special teams only, Also possible George Allen had comments on this as well. His old playbooks had 40 yard times for his players, in camp. Cowboys too

Gil Bandt seems to credit Brown and says standardization began in 1982, with first of the 'combines' but 40-yard times uses in BLESTO and CEPA and Trioka in the 1960s ...

In the early days, it was 50 yards, not 40. Faulker and Al LoCasalle mention this.

The Jerry Rice mythology was one of major drivers of '40 yards means nothing' but Rice was far faster than that 4.7 or whatever he ran, which was the anomoly. Anyway, lots of good storys about speed going way back ...

I'm by no means an expert but I've always thought the most important "speed" in the game was reaction time and the first few steps after one has determined where they need to be.

I think it also depends entirely on your position.
A receiver needs different speed attributes than a pulling guard or a linebacker.
Speed out of your cut, start/stop speed and speed pulling over a distance of maybe 15-20 yards are all different skills and of different importance depending on where you play.
Catch-up speed is something of vital importance to defenders only.

Not as important today is "terrain" speed.
How fast one runs on a "carpet" isn't always transferable to running in mud or the snow.

On the sandlot we generally had two speed groupings.
The "fast guys" played the skill positions and D-back. The "slow guys" were the linemen. Linebackers were "'tweeners."
The team once voted me the "fastest slow guy" which I always took as just about the most back-handed compliment possible.