Keeler: Why Broncos rookie KJ Hamler would’ve had Henry Ruggs eating his dust
Henry Ruggs III and KJ Hamler line up for a foot race to decide the fate of the free world.
Who wins?
“Put it like this,” Jeff Phillips said, “Ruggs ran a great 40 time (at the NFL combine). But with the ball in his hands, and that’s what really matters to me, I’ll take KJ.”
As the receivers coach at Orchard Lake (Mich.) St. Mary’s Preparatory, Phillips clocked Hamler — the Broncos’ second-round draft pick out of Penn State and Drew Lock’s new fastest toy — more than a handful of times.
“I had him at 4.28 (in the 40),” said Phillips, who was Hamler’s position coach at St. Mary’s back in the day. “But that was a long time ago. It’s different at the combine when you work on it and you’re getting ready to run it. He might’ve been 16-17 years old.
“Now, with more weight and power in him, I think he would’ve beaten Ruggs in that race.”
Ruggs ran a 4.27 at Indianapolis in February. At age 21.
“I won’t say I think I was going to break the (combine) record, but I was going to be in the equation,” noted Hamler, who strained a hamstring while training and didn’t run at Indy. “(Running a) 4.2 was the only thing on my mind … a mid-4.2 or a high-4.2 was the only time I was going to run.”
Dude’s always been a step ahead. Or six. As a 4-year-old, Kahlee Jacoby Hamler and mother, Latonya Gooding, were visiting his grandma one day when Mom turned her head for a second. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw little KJ zoom out of the backyard, then take a quick right onto the sidewalk, all without breaking stride.
“I was so mad at him,” Gooding recalled with a laugh. “He could run before he could walk.”
That speed is the stuff of legend now. And some debate, especially when it comes to the most divisive selection of a stellar Broncos 2020 draft haul.
Front Range fans had visions for months of Ruggs doing Tyreek Hill things in orange. He was going to help even the playing field against the Chiefs, who’ve been running circles, literally and figuratively, around the Broncos since Peyton Manning retired. Denver’s dropped nine straight to Kansas City, the longest winning streak for the Arrowhead red in the rivalry since the Chiefs’ 11 consecutive wins from 1964-69.
The Raiders took Ruggs with pick No. 12. The Broncos wound up with Ruggs’ Alabama teammate, the more polished Jerry Jeudy, at pick No. 15 — a win by any measure.
But the thirst for a speed merchant, a home-run threat, never left general manager John Elway’s noggin. Even though a number of good cornerbacks, inside linebackers and Boise State left tackle Ezra Cleveland were still on the board at pick No. 46, Elway, having been denied his Ruggs, went for the next best thing.
Or, just maybe, something better.
During two seasons at Penn State, the staff had Hamler running with a Catapult vest, effectively a GPS that could track his speed. As a redshirt freshman in 2018, he reportedly topped out at 21.76 miles per hour and at 21.58 last fall. Both numbers would’ve ranked among the quickest 13 times tracked by the NFL in each of the last two autumns.
“(When I read) John Elway saying KJ was running a 3.93 (40-yard dash),” Gooding chuckled, referring to a film nugget the Broncos GM tossed at longtime NFL scribe Peter King. “I said, ‘Don’t start that. They’re going to be expecting him to run a 3.93.’ I said, ‘3.93? Nooooo, John Elway.’”
Still, 4.2-ish sounds right on track. When Michigan cornerback Ambry Thomas, who runs a mid-4.3 in the 40, locked horns with Hamler at an Sound Mind Sound Body (SMSB) camp at Wayne State University in June 2016, witnesses swear the future Broncos wideout matched the Wolverine stride for stride.
“With the receiving corps you have (in Denver),” SMSB president and founder Curtis Blackwell offered, “it’s going to be like a track meet.”
In a few months, coronavirus willing, it’s going to be epic. Ultimately, Ruggs and Hamler are going to settle this bad boy on the scoreboard. Don’t blink.