https://www.espn.com/nfl/insider/st...2-rosters-speed-stacks-why-crucial-today-game
The Carolina Panthers are sitting on a four-game losing streak, but there's long-term hope in Carolina with a new owner, hedge fund manager David Tepper, hand-picking coach Matt Rhule and general manager Scott Fitterer in back-to-back years. The rebuild will take time, but the brain trust is working fast, thinking fast -- and prioritizing fast.
Carolina ranks first overall in the NFL in team speed with 9.62 yards covered per second, first in wide receiver speed (10.23 yards per second) and second at two other positions (defensive back and tight end).
No one knows the team's love of speed better than Evan Cooper, the Panthers' cornerbacks coach who also has a broader role: director of player evaluation. His job, in part, is to be an extension of Rhule.
"I learned very quickly he has a type," said Cooper, who was with Rhule at Temple and Baylor. "As long as I work for him, we share a type."
Rhule loves all the things most coaches love, including grit, hard work, poise and good character. But he also believes in the NFL truism that you can't teach height, weight, speed. That means Cooper spends countless hours looking for sneaky-fast gems. Fast players come into camp with a "little extra," and even if they don't play fast, their preparation and coaching should help them get there.
"We go all the way back to high-school track times," Cooper said. "We'll do all the legwork, check out GPS numbers. Some guys, it's pretty obvious, they are fast on tape. You don't need see a 40 from [Ravens receiver] Hollywood Brown to know he's fast. But we try to balance our eye and what the tape says and what's the numbers say and use as many clues as we can."
In fact, double-checking high-school triple-jump scores helped the Panthers feel good about signing defensive back Myles Hartsfield, an undrafted free agent out of Ole Miss who became Carolina's slot corner before injury. Hartsfield ran in the 4.4s but only had a Pro Day time, which some NFL teams consider unofficial.
The new regime acquired speedster receiver DJ Moore (the NFL's fourth-fastest player at an average of 10.43 yards per second), but recent WR additions Robby Anderson and Terrace Marshall Jr. both recorded unofficial sub-4.4 40s out of college. Safety Jeremy Chinn, at 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds, is currently the league's 11th-fastest player at 10.33 yards per second. And he's in the same secondary as corner Donte Jackson, who has "drop-on-a-dime" speed, Cooper said.
While the Panthers try to turn speed into wins, a team that (usually) wins often is trying to find more speed.