The Xavier Worthy conundrum: Is being too fast, bad? | Inside Coverage

Yahoo Sports’ Jason Fitz is joined by senior NFL writer Jori Epstein and senior NFL reporter Charles Robinson to discuss why Xavier Worthy’s record-breaking 40-yard dash is viewed by some as detrimental to his draft stock and if the future of evaluating wide receivers is changing. Hear the full conversation on “Inside Coverage” – part of the “Zero Blitz” podcast – and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Video Transcript

JASON FITZ: Jori, you’ve been taking a look on Xavier Worthy a lot, just because of his speed and the way they analyze it. What are you finding when you look at teams and the way they’re looking at the wide receiver position?

JORI EPSTEIN: Yeah. I find this so interesting, because for so long, for decades now, we’ve been like, how do you determine how fast a guy is and how you can use his speed? The 40-yard dash. And now, you increasingly have this chorus of people who say, well, is the 40-yard dash the best way to judge speed?

And is it even relevant to an NFL game where you rarely have 40 yards of open field in front of you? And I looked at Xavier Worthy, who’s the Texas Longhorns receiver, and he reset the record this year with his 4.21-second 40-yard dash. And some people are saying, well, then he’s going to be super fast. Like, look at what the Dolphins do. He’s going to be so effective in an offense like that.

And then I almost feel like there are a group of people who hold it against him in a weird way and be like, well, if he plays that fast, it’s hard for him to stop, and get in and out of his breaks, and react in the way that he needs to. And if he plays that fast, well, Puka Nacua was really slow last year at his 40, and look what he was able to do with the rookie record.

And so there’s this weird chorus of people, and Xavier is so aware of this, that, literally, at 7:18 the morning after he set the record, he tweeted out to people, like, don’t let the 40 fool you. Like, the routes are there. Watch the…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/xavier-worthy-conundrum-being-too-181057056.html

Author : Yahoo Sports Videos

Publish date : 2024-04-12 18:10:57

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