Jadeveon Clowney isn’t the only physical freak among the defensive linemen working out today at the Scouting Combine.
Pitt defensive tackle Aaron Donald just ran his first 40-yard dash in an unofficial 4.65 seconds.
At 285 pounds.
Even when that one’s inevitably rounded down a bit, that’s still stretching the laws of physics. When you multiply mass times acceleration, it will make Donald a high pick anyway.
But the short-area acceleration which is so vital for defensive linemen is where you get a real sense of Donald’s burst. His 10-yard split was 1.59 seconds, a hair behind Clowney’s 1.56, for a guy carrying an extra 20 pounds.
That is going to earn Donald a lot of comparisons to players such as Bengals All-Pro Geno Atkins, and guarantee that unlike Atkins, he won’t have to wait until the fourth round.