I've mentioned this on the baseball forum. Coaches would get all excited when a kid ran a 6.5 straight line 60. Who cares...when you do you run that far in a straight line in baseball. I looked for sub 1.6 10yd. and if it was 1.5...oh boy. Those guys tore up the t drill typically too.
Same with football...how many 80 yard plays are there in a season...lets get guys who can cut and get 6-8. Receivers who catch a 10 yd route, make one more and get 20. Or if they catch the ball with a step on a guy they dont get caught due to that burst right after the catch.
Yep.
Interesting point of fact: For a player in the front seven on defense, the distance someone moves on an AVERAGE play from their initial alignment at the snap, until the play is dead .... is under 14 yards.
For DB's it's more, but not much more so on average.
On offense, it's under 12 yards. With the exception of the X and Z, where it's more, but again, on average, not extraordinarily so. More like +/- 16 yards.
So, yes, obsessing over how fast a guy is running 60 yards downfield, while nice to know, and not without some value, doesn't tell the whole story. No even close.