The 5 greatest NFL Combine performances of all time

Highlights

• NFL Combine drills can significantly impact a prospect’s draft value, either raising it by millions of dollars or causing it to plummet.
• Left tackle Trent Williams and tight end Vernon Davis showcased incredible athleticism at the combine, leading to their rise in the draft and subsequent successful careers.
• Running Back Saquon Barkley’s combine performance was among the greatest of all time, demonstrating his exceptional speed, strength, and leaping ability.

The NFL Combine invites the greatest athletes in college football to prove their physical prowess in front of a sea of scouts and decision-makers. A single athletic drill could raise or sink a prospect’s value by millions of dollars. Players can go from an unheralded prospect to a first round pick in under 4.4 seconds, thanks to the 40-yard dash.

Alternatively, players can also plummet thanks to poor testing or a worrisome physique. We wrote about the biggest busts in NFL draft history; now it’s time for the greatest combine wonders that went on to All-Pro careers. Here are the incredible athletes that dropped jaws even among the cream of the crop.

5 Trent Williams, LT

2010 NFL Combine – 6’4-5/8″, 315 Pounds

Coming out of Oklahoma, Trent Williams exemplified the always impressive corollary of “big man move very fast.” At 6’5″ and 315 pounds, the current best tackle in football blazed a 4.81 40-yard dash. That’s like watching a washing machine break the sound barrier. That ridiculous time puts him in the 98th percentile of all 40 yard dashes by lineman.

As if that wasn’t enough, he also launched his massive body a ridiculous 34.5 inches on the vertical and an absurd 9’5″ on the broad jump. Those types of numbers are usually reserved for NFL wide receivers or NBA small forwards, not a gigantic human capable of dragging a car around.

Coming into the combine, Williams projected as a borderline first round pick. After scouts saw his unreal athleticism, he shot to the top five. That’s more than a $20 million difference! Obviously, Williams’ play since his otherworldly combine performance has more than matched those incredible feats.

4 Vernon Davis, TE

2006 NFL Combine – 6’3-1/4″, 254 Pounds

If Trent Williams dropped jaws, then Vernon Davis blew minds. While at Maryland, Davis played well enough to earn a mid-first round grade from most scouts. However, the performance he put on at the Combine shot him up draft boards. No one expected a 250-pound man to run the 11th fastest 40 time, regardless of position!

Here are a few headliners that Davis dusted at the 2006 Combine with his historic 40: Devin Hester (!), Greg Jennings, Antonio Cromartie, and Vince Young. The fact that Davis flew past perhaps the greatest return man in NFL history still makes no sense. It’s like Usain Bolt losing a sprint to a water buffalo. Davis ran only a tenth of a second slower than Reggie Bush! Yes, that Reggie Bush.

Besides his glitch-in-the-system 40 times, Davis also put on a show in the vertical jump, broad jump, 20-yard shuttle, and bench press. His percentiles for each drill look like an overachieving high school student’s report card. Davis’ broad jump measured nearly a foot longer than the next closest tight end. The difference between him and the number two broad jump was nearly the same between number two and the worst tight end number.

3 Saquon Barkley, RB

2018 NFL Draft – 6′ 0,” 233 pounds

Barkley’s performance, when you take size into consideration, ranks among the greatest of all time. His 4.4 40-yard dash ranks as the third-fastest time ever for a man over 230 pounds. Only Mario Fannin (4.38) and Calvin “Megatron” Johnson (4.35) recorded faster times at that weight.

His 41-inch vertical jump far and away surpasses any running back in his weight class. Only Eric Shelton’s 38.5 and Nick Bell’s 39.5 come within the ballpark. Hilariously, Barkley’s bench press also falls around the top five of running backs 235 pounds or smaller. So, he’s faster than guys much smaller than he is, and stronger than his much bigger counterparts. That’s not how it’s supposed to work.

As NFL research discovered, comparing Barkley with individual testing numbers from other amazing athletes really put his ridiculous athleticism into perspective. Based on their combine numbers, Saquon is faster than Devin Hester, stronger than Joe Thomas, quicker than Desean Jackson, and jumps higher than Julio Jones. Yes, you read that right.

The Urban Legends

For some reason, before 2006, the powers that be of the NFL Combine decided that sundials were actually the best means of measurement. That’s why you’ll rarely hear pundits mention records before then; they just aren’t verifiable. Even though that’s the case, the careers of these next two legends merit a place on this list.

Obviously, if their careers went nowhere, they’d barely be footnotes in history. But since their performances on the field matched their otherworldly testing numbers, we thought we’d add them to the list.

2 Deion Sanders, CB

1989 NFL Draft – 6′ 1″, 198 pounds

Deion “Primetime” Sanders deserved a place on this list just for the unbelievable amount of swag he brought to the Combine. According to the man himself:

It happened to be the Giants’ room. They sat me down and gave me a thick book. This thing was thicker than a phone book. I said, ‘What’s this?’ They said, ‘This is our test that we give all the players.’ I said, ‘Excuse me, what pick do you have in the draft?’ They said, ‘10th.’ I said, ‘I’ll be gone before then. I’ll see y’all later.’ That’s a true story.

After rightly telling the New York Giants he’d be gone by the 10th pick, Sanders participated in just a single drill. But it was enough. As Bill scout Dave Gettleman told Sports Illustrated:

Deion gets up to the line and runs his first 40 and everyone has him at 4.3. We figured he was done. He gets up and runs another one, and he runs even faster. Some people had him at 4.25 [officially a 4.27]. And the funniest damn thing about it was he finishes the 40, continues to run, waves to everybody, goes right through the tunnel, and we don’t see him again. We all got up and gave him a standing ovation because so many of those guys wouldn’t run.

Now that’s a man ready for Prime time.

1 Bo Jackson, RB

1986 NFL Draft – 6’ 1” 230 pounds

Of all the mythical athletes in history, Bo Jackson most represents Big foot.

While other players have dabbled in two sports, only Jackson continuously delivered highlight reels in both baseball and football. Whether they were 500-foot home runs at the diamond or running over and past an entire team on the gridiron, Jackson brought the truly impossible to life.

The urban legend surrounding his inconceivable 4.12 40-yard dash is befitting for sports’ most mythical figure. The time was so unbelievable that Larry Dorman of the Miami Herald even joked about it in his column:

Ha-ha. Good one, this 4.12. Bo changed in a phone booth before he ran, right? If it hadn’t been for his cape creating all that wind resistance, it would have been 4.01?

His skepticism prompted scouting legend and then-director of the National Football Scouting Co. Harry Buffington—who’d been on the job since 1965—to verify the time. Buffington told Dorman:

Even if the 4.12 is a bad time, which I don’t think it is, the guy can fly. Nobody in the 27 years that we’ve been in this business has ever gone that fast.

He also told Dorman that Jackson’s other run was clocked at 4.22, which would still be world-class speed and tied for the second fastest in NFL Combine history. Either way, at least one official scout clocked Jackson at 4.12, which would not only be fast for the NFL but also blazing fast at the Olympics.

All statistics courtesy of Pro Football Reference and all contract information courtesy of Spotrac unless stated otherwise.