When Mekhi Becton stopped by PFT Live this week, he told Mike Florio and Charean Williams that his goal was to run the 40-yard-dash in 5.2 seconds at the Scouting Combine.
Becton, who is the largest player at the Combine at 6'7" and 364 pounds, did a little bit better than that on Friday. The former Louisville offensive tackle was unofficially clocked at 5.11 seconds -- the official time was announced at 5.1 seconds later -- on his first run in Indianapolis. His second run came in at 5.13 seconds
Per ProFootballReference.com, that’s the fastest a player who weighs more than 347 pounds has ever run at the Combine. Buccaneers defensive tackle Vita Vea ran a 5.1 40 at that weight in 2018.
Becton, who trained with Olympic gold medalist Michael Johnson, had a 10-yard split of 1.8 seconds on his first run and 1.77 seconds on his second. Per Dane Brugler of TheAthletic, the average 10-yard split of the top 30 tackles is 1.79 seconds.
While no team is likely to ask Becton to sprint 40 yards on a regular basis, the burst he showed on Friday should only help him reach his goal of going in the top 10 in April.
UPDATE 4:50 p.m. ET: Kim Jones of NFL Media reports that Becton is done for the day due to feeling tightness in his hamstring after the second run.