West Virginia’s Geno Smith may be the best quarterback in this year’s NFL draft. He’s definitely the fastest.
Smith turned in a 4.56-second 40-yard dash at the Scouting Combine on Sunday morning, the best 40 time of any quarterback in this year’s draft class. Running in the 4.5s puts Smith on par with what Russell Wilson and Colin Kaepernick ran when they were in the Combine. Both of them have shown a great ability to use that speed on the field.
What’s interesting about Smith, however, is that he tends not to use his speed on the field: Smith was much more a passer than a runner at West Virginia, passing for 4,205 yards and 42 touchdowns while running for 151 yards and two touchdowns last season. So Smith should not be viewed as a running quarterback.
Still, proving he has the speed to make plays with his feet -- especially at a time when NFL teams seem to be intrigued by the ways that running quarterbacks can threaten opposing defenses -- can only help his draft stock.