A Pick 6 of NFL teams that could use Usain Bolt

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 07:46:18 +0000

Now that the Olympics are over, there's one very fast young man looking at one very long layoff before resurfacing in Rio in four years.

Hey, Usain Bolt! You want to play in the NFL?

Bob Hayes, gold medal winner in the 100 meters at the 1964 Tokyo Games and dubbed world's fastest human, did it. So did Renaldo Nehemiah, world record-holder in the 110-meter hurdles who missed the 1980 Moscow Games because of a U.S. boycott.

Sure, money would be an issue. And it's questionable whether you'd be willing to put on pads, practice every day, learn to catch footballs while running at world-record speed, and then deal with getting slammed to the ground by defenders.

Nonetheless, think about this:

Hayes became the first Olympic champion to make it big in pro football. He was a wide receiver for nine years with the Dallas Cowboys, and a two-time All-Pro. He was so fast that defenses abandoned man-to-man coverage and came up with zone defenses in an attempt to keep him in check. He's now in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Nehemiah didn't have as much success in his four years as a wide receiver with the San Francisco 49ers, but he was a hurdler after all, and not the fastest runner on the planet.

Salon.com > By Richard Rosenblatt

A Pick 6 of NFL teams that could use Usain Bolt