Legend has it that former Pittsburgh Steelers CB Ike Taylor once ran an unofficial 4.18-second 40-yard dash. We’ve seen that number disseminated throughout the years, naming him one of the fastest players in NFL history. But even he never claimed that he ran quite that fast, and he set the record straight recently.
Former Steelers cornerbacks Bryant McFadden and Patrick Peterson hosted Taylor on their All Things Covered podcast and asked him about the validity of his alleged 4.18 time. “No. Nah, that’s, what do people say, cap?”, he said.
“I think my fastest time was like, 4.29, 4.27”, Taylor added, hastening to mark those as hand-timed numbers. But he only had the opportunity to test against hand times because the NFL never invited him to the NFL Scouting Combine, which he believes affected his draft stock.
“Me and my homeboys would talk about, man, if I was to go to the Combine, ain’t no telling if I was gonna be a Steeler”, he said. “I would’ve been one of the sleepers who would’ve ran fast, jumped high, drills was good. I was doing everything I needed to do for my Pro Day”.
A small-school product out of Louisiana-Lafayette, Taylor slipped into the fourth round of the 2003 NFL Draft. Had he received an invitation to the Combine, his stellar test results probably would have landed him in Oakland.
Tom Shaw claimed Taylor as the fastest player he’d ever worked with. He spent years training Taylor and played a role in setting up the drills we see at the Combine. Shaw claimed around 2010 or so that Taylor ran a 4.26 electronic time, for what it’s worth.
The important thing is Taylor played fast, though, which we saw during his 12-year Steelers career. He never made the Pro Bowl, but he provided true lockdown coverage for a number of years. No doubt his speed helped him keep up with the fastest receivers in the game, but he only took off after marrying his talent with fundamentals.
Now 43 years old and a decade removed from his playing career, Taylor is working on the Steelers’ scouting circuit. The Steelers don’t list him on their website, but he’s on the Pro Day rounds running prospects through drills.
No doubt Taylor would have posted an electric time at the Combine had he earned an invitation. The year he came out of school, WR Tyrone Calico tied a then-Combine record of 4.27 seconds. Surely Taylor stood a good chance of timing in that ballpark, perhaps even beating it.
The Steelers did draft Dri Archer in 2014, who at the time ran the second-fastest 40 in Combine history. His 4.26 seconds marked just .02 second shy of Chris Johnson. Since then, two have timed faster, with 2024 WR prospect Xavier Worthy breaking the record with a 4.21-second run.
But let’s put it this way: if you’re running a sub-4.3-second 40-yard dash, you’re fast. Ike Taylor had plenty of speed during his playing career, enough to lose a step and still play fast. But even he admits he never ran a 4.2-second sprint.
