UGA football players at the NFL Combine: Top performances to date
UGA football players know how to party at the NFL Combine.
Before a new breed of Bulldogs takes the field of battle to run through lasers and jump over stuff, here are the best Georgia football performances at the NFL Combine to date.
Chris Conley’s vertical jump is the best of all UGA football players – and most players, ever
We’ve seen some amazing vertical talent from UGA football players in the past.
Boss Bailey could seemingly touch the moon every time he jumped to block a field goal.
We’ve all seen the still image of Nick Chubb warming up for a high school track meet.
Even Kirby Smart shows his leaping ability on the Georgia football sideline.
But none of those UGA football players, past or present, can touch what Chris Conley did at the 2015 NFL Combine.
Conley’s 45.0 vertical leap tied Donald Washington (2009), Chris McKenzie (2005) and Chris Chambers (2001) for the highest ever.
No one broke it until Illinois’s Josh Imatorbhebhe at his school’s Pro Day, but that’s unofficial, since the 2021 NFL Combine was canceled due to Covid.
Conley also had what’s tied for the fourth-best broad jump of all time, at 139.
Eric Stokes’s 40-yard-dash one of the fastest in history of UGA football players
Eric Stokes blistered the 40-yard dash in 2021, and it helped him earn a first-round selection from Green Bay.
Stokes ran that unofficial 4.24 in a NFL Combine “workout.” The numbers are murky since there wasn’t an official NFL Combine in 2021.
Some people also reported it as 4.25. What’s a hundredth of a second, anyway?
If Stokes ran a 4.24 in an actual NFL Combine, he would be tied for third-fastest in combine history.
In the history of Georgia football players, Stokes’s 4.24 unofficial time is the fastest ever.
As for who was officially first…
Champ Bailey had one of Georgia football’s greatest NFL Combine performances of all time
When you look at the overall NFL Combine performance of Champ Bailey, he performed among the best across the board.
40-yard dash: 4.28
Vertical jump: 37
Broad jump: 121
20-yard shuttle: 3.79
Champ’s shuttle time is the fifth-fastest of all-time. His 40 is still tied for seventh-best all-time.
I wonder how all those impressive workout numbers worked out for him?
Jeff Owens throws the plates around
Defensive tackle Jeff Owens’s 44 bench press reps still rank tied for fourth all-time at the NFL Combine.
That also makes him the strongest bench repper in Georgia football history.
It’s amazing to me that with all of the strength improvements at UGA in the past decade-plus, Jeff Owens still has that record among Georgia football players.
Hot take alert:
One of the 14 Dawgs will break it this year. Just playing the odds.
Keith Marshall still ranks T10 all-time in the 40-yard-dash
Keith Marshall got robbed by injuries.
He was the higher-ranked recruit coming out of North Carolina in the same class as Todd Gurley, but the SEC tore him apart.
Despite that, Marshall still blazed to a 4.31 40-yard-dash in 2016.
Marshall out-paced everyone between the lasers.
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