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Does a fast 40-yard dash mean more fantasy production?
Verdict — For tight ends onlyFor tight ends, clearly. For wide receivers, not at all. A tight end’s 40 time correlates with his receptions per game at −0.37 — faster is better, and it is one of the stronger single predictors we have for the position. For wide receivers the same number is −0.02, which is nothing.
The 40 is the most quoted number of the entire draft process and the most argued about. It turns out to matter a great deal for one position and not at all for another, which is probably why the argument never ends — both sides have seen it work.
| Position | Players | 40 vs receptions/gm | 40 vs targets/gm | Spread of 40 times |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tight end | 114 | −0.37 | −0.39 | 0.126s |
| Running back | 135 | −0.09 | −0.09 | 0.085s |
| Wide receiver | 189 | −0.02 | −0.04 | 0.136s |
The effect for tight ends is not subtle. Across 114 tight ends with a combine time and at least 24 games, the 40 tracks both receptions per game (−0.37) and targets per game (−0.39). A tight end who can run is a coverage problem no defense has a clean answer for, and offenses throw at that.
For 189 wide receivers the same correlations are −0.02 and −0.04. Knowing a receiver’s 40 time tells you nothing useful about how often he will catch the ball. Running backs sit close to receivers at −0.09.
The usual explanation for this is wrong, and we checked. The story you normally hear is that receivers are all fast, so the number cannot separate them, while tight ends vary. Measured, the spread of 40 times is slightly WIDER among receivers than tight ends — a standard deviation of 0.136 seconds against 0.126. There is plenty of variation among receivers; it simply does not predict targets. We do not know why, and would rather say so than invent a reason that sounds right.
The usable version: treat speed as a tight-end prior and ignore it for receivers. For a rookie tight end with no NFL usage to read, it is one of the few pre-season signals with anything behind it.
How this was measured
Combine 40-yard dash times joined by name to every player with at least 24 games from 2018 through 2025, using official play-by-play for production. Per-game rates rather than totals, so a long career does not read as a good one. A negative correlation means a faster time goes with more production. Joining on name loses players whose combine record is spelled differently and excludes anyone who never ran, which skews the sample toward players teams brought to the combine in the first place.