Oklahoma receiver Malcolm Kelly ran a slower-than-expected time in the 40-yard dash during his Pro Day workout on Wednesday. And he’s now blowing more wind into that red flag by not taking responsibility for his so-so results.
According to the Associated Press, Kelly blamed the school for his performance, claiming that there was an unexpected change in the surface on which he ran.
“This is my life. You know what I’m saying? This ain’t no school. This ain’t no classroom. This ain’t got nothing to do with that,” Kelly said. “This has to do with me; my family. This is what I do. I play football. And I’m supposed to come out here and run as fast as I can.”
Kelly says that he’d arranged to run on an Astroturf infield at the school’s indoor track facility. Instead, he ran on FieldTurf at the Sooners’ indoor football facility.
“I already had everything set up for where I want to do it at,” Kelly said. “I get out here and it’s a whole different deal.
“People want to say surface is surface, but it’s a lot more to it than that. You have to think about how much ground time you have running on this mushy surface here and how much ground time you have on Astroturf.”
Fine, Malcolm. But what you’re missing here is that the scouts are aware of this, and so they add time when the surface is believed to be too fast. Besides, given that no NFL games are played on Astroturf and many are played on FieldTurf, it makes much more sense for prospects to run on the current generation of plastic grass.
Kelly didn’t run the 40 at the Scouting Combine, due to a lingering quad injury. The surface at the RCA Dome is FieldTurf.
As to the quad injury, Kelly also criticized the Oklahoma medical staff for not accurately diagnosing the injury.
In our view, Kelly’s childish effort to push the blame for his performance to the school that invested plenty of time and money into him isn’t the best way to persuade an NFL team to invest even more time and money. Because if/when things don’t go well for Kelly at the next level, it’s safe to say he’ll be looking to point the finger for his failures and/or frustrations at the team.
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April 10th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Hey Old School. If they pay him in ones, can they get by with paying to an amount that he can count to? Thay may be a great deal.
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April 10th, 2008 at 9:31 am
“In our view, Kelly’s childish effort to push the blame for his performance to the school that invested plenty of time and money into him”
Get real, man. OU made more money off of Malcolm Kelly than they could ever invest in him. Don’t act like OU did Kelly any favors by letting him play there. Anybody that has ever played college football knows good and well that the players get USED.
The guy obviously cares about his performance and his future. I think it speaks volumes about him that he prepared so meticulously for this. I dunno if you’ve ever actually run a sprint, Florio, but the surface you run it on can have an incredible impact on your speed. From now until draft day, there will be talk about his speed. In reality, this could have cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars. You’d be pissed too.
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April 10th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Slow and a potential locker room cancer . . . I think someone else just got richer by moving up into the 1st round.
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April 10th, 2008 at 9:58 am
How awesome is it that Delaware QB Joe Flacco missed by two-hundreths of a second having a better 40-time than Malcolm Kelly (4.84 v. 4.82), lol?
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April 10th, 2008 at 10:15 am
Tissues….were gonna need more tissues
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April 10th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Looks like the Eagles WR questions just got answered.
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April 10th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Questions linger about his knee… or there are serious questions about his explosiveness. We know now that he isn’t a team guy and isn’t very smart.
He should have also stated, “That ain’t no good 40 time and now I ain’t going in no 1st round.”
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April 10th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Too much emphasis is placed on the 40 time.
Jerry Rice, anyone?
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April 10th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I can’t believe how badly that surface debacled Kelly. I think he’ll be good no matter what, the reaction of him to the time is far worse than the mediocre time.
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April 10th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
The real issue here is that he really doesn’t have any time to set up a personal workout and have people show up, since the draft is so close.
Like I said before, these guys need to use the Combine, their pro day and a personal work out so they have the maximum number of chances to perform well for the scouts.
Someone in his camp should have anticipated the possibility that things may not go well, also that the OU pro day was late and then scheduled a personal workout between the Combine and pro day.
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April 10th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
he’s just mad cause he’s gonna suck on Madden
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April 10th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
I showed this story to my 12 year old son and used it as an example of what an uneducated moron speaks and acts like. He was at one of the best schools in the nation and he completely threw them under the bus because of poor performance. What an idiot. “Ain’t” going to be pretty when Malcom comes across the middle.
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