Tyreek Hill is willing to give Adam Schefter a 40-yard head start in a race for charity

Could Schefter win this?

What started as a fun game on Twitter may actually turn into a race for charity: Tyreek Hill vs. Adam Schefter.

Last week, Hill responded to a tweet that urged people to challenge their first Twitter follow to a race. For the Chiefs receiver, that first follow was Schefter. And just like that — Hill issued out the challenge, and the ESPN NFL insider seemed 100 percent down to do this race when the coronavirus pandemic ends.

Now, Tyreek Hill is among the fastest players in the entire NFL. Adam Schefter is, uh, not a professional athlete.

To make this race more interesting, Hill said that he was willing to give Schefter a 40-yard head start in a 100-yard race. Hill would also be wearing pads.

At first thought, it seems like Hill would have Schefter beat easily despite the 40-yard cushion. But Schefter isn’t the slowest dude in sports media either. A couple years ago, he ran a respectable 5.02 40-yard dash while wearing a dress shirt and khakis.

So, who would win this matchup?

It basically becomes a distance-to-overtake calculus question, and I specifically chose this career path to avoid calculus. I gave it my best effort, though (and enlisted some help from aerospace engineer Garrett Gosse).

If we were to assume that Schefter would be able to run that 40 yards again in 5.02 seconds, he’d need to cover those remaining 20 yards before Hill could overtake him. His peak speed was 16.3 mph, so let’s say Schefter slows down a couple miles per hour in the final 20 yards. He’d finish his 60-yard dash in around 8 seconds.

Now, Hill would get to 40 yards in 4.3 seconds because, well, he’s incredibly fast. And Next Gen Stats has measured Hill at 22.6 mph in pads. Let’s say he’d be able to take that 22.6 mph pace and use that for the final 60 yards, he’s still looking at a 9.73-second 100-yard dash.

And for reference, Hill did race Terrell Owens in a 100-yard dash this summer (Owens had a 10-yard head start). And Hill covered those 100 yards in 9.89 seconds without pads.

So, yeah, a 40-yard head start is huge here. Unless Schefter stumbles and falls (possible!), I think he’d edge out Hill in this one.

But there’s only one way to find out: Make this race happen!

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