If you’d been paying attention to how the NFL Draft has been shaping up, you knew that most people had Ohio State’s Chris “Beanie” Wells (above) and Georgia’s Knowshon Moreno as 1 and 1-A on the big board. But that standing could be in jeopardy after both players posted disappointing 40 times in the combine over the weekend. From Y! Sports:
Wells posted a 40 in the 4.55-4.6 range, which was a solid but not stunning number for his size.
Moreno’s time was troubling. When the week started, a handful of coaches and personnel suggested Moreno as the guy who could help himself with a great workout. And while he fared well in the agility drills, his 40 was clocked in a lukewarm 4.55-4.65 range. Some personnel men were predicting something closer to 4.45.
NFL.com has the best 40 times here, and also some advice on how to actually run the 40, which is bullshit, because if I wanted to travel that far I’d take the bus. Have you ever tried reading in a dead sprint? I did. Once.
Regardless of how you feel about Ohio State, there was little arguement that the biggest “Your Team Just Took One In The Ass” moment from college football last week was the injury to Buckeyes tailback Chris “Beanie” Wells. Wells was considered by many to be the frontrunner in this year’s Heisman Trophy race, and it looks like Coach Tressel won’t play him in tomorrow’s game against Ohio University. From Y! Sports:
“Beanie won’t go this week,” Tressel said Thursday afternoon. “I feel good about his progress, but it wasn’t enough progress to practice through yesterday.”
Asked if he worries that Wells may not be available when the Buckeyes play at No. 1 Southern California on Sept. 13, Tressel added: “No, not at all. Not at all. But that’s easy to say today.”
Ohio State has not allowed him to speak with reporters since he was injured, although he was quoted as saying by a team spokesman that he was relieved that X-rays had not shown any broken bones.
Everyone and their mother knew it was either muscle or ligament damage as soon as it happened, so the negative X-ray is just a tick on a dog’s ass, really. There’s no reason to play him this week; he’ll need to be healthy for Ohio State to compete against Southern Cal next week. Wells is a lot like a panda, except that he’s not Chinese and doesn’t eat bamboo. Nor does he enjoy any federal protection from being driven into extinction. But other than that, Beanie might as well be American for “panda.”
