Chris Olive, Gareth Wilson show why they were selected in the first round with outstanding performances at the NFL Scouting Combine

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It took less than 4.4 seconds for Chris Olav and Gareth Wilson to solidify their status as selecters in the first round of the NFL Scout Factory.

As soon as each of Ohio’s former successors completed his only 40-yard run at Lucas Oil Stadium on Thursday night, they had both proven why they were two of the best receivers – if not the two best receivers – in the NFL 2022 draft class.

Wilson officially recorded a run time of 40 yards of 4.38 seconds, while Olave posted an official time of 4.39 seconds, the eighth and ninth fastest time among all wide receivers on this year’s combine. Although the official times were not as fast as the unofficial times reported by the NFL Network, in which Olav walked 4.26 seconds 40, both times nevertheless confirmed the elite speed they both showed during their careers in Ohio.

Of course, Wilson and Olav showed much more than speed in a straight line over the years, playing in scarlet and gray, and they showed that in the combine, as they both went through full training on the field, which also ran routes and caught passes. from quarterbacks involved in the plant.

They both seemed to play a role in these training sessions, which I watched from Lucas Oil Stadium as part of a small group of Pro Football Writers of America members who were given access to watch the host part of the training session, allowing us to see each route they ran and passed. they caught.

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From my eyes – which may be a bit biased because I focused more on Olav and Wilson than on any of the other receivers – Olav looked his best out of all the wide outs in their group during the deep ball part. training as he effortlessly watched several long passes with his speed and hands, just as he had done during his Buckeye career.

Wilson showed his ability to adapt to the ball and make challenging grips by making a pair of finger grips in the sideline as well as a spinning deep grip. He didn’t get as many well-placed throws of his deep balls as Olav, but he managed to catch a lot of deep balls that were thrown from below.

Although each of them has had at least one pass from their hands for drops, their overall workouts can be described as smooth, as most of their routes and catches are clean. Combining what they did in the reception training with their 40 times, their gas supplies did not have to improve until Thursday night.

Although there were seven other wide receivers that also broke 4.4 in the 1940s, Wilson and Olav were the fastest of the wide receivers that were widely predicted as first-round elections. Jahn Dotson of Penn State was not far behind with a 4.43-second run of 40 yards, but there is a clear difference between the times of Olive and Wilson and the 4.55-second 40s spent by the Traylan Burks of Arkansas. Alabama’s Jameson Williams would probably have spent incredibly fast on his own if he had been able to train at the plant, but he is recovering from a torn ACL he suffered in a National Championship match; Drake London of the USC, another predicted top wide out, also failed in Indianapolis after suffering an ankle injury at the end of the season in October.

With the exception of the vertical jump, in which Wilson (36 “) jumped Olav (32”) by four inches, their combined measurable values ​​were very comparable to each other. While Wilson beat Olav by just one-hundredth of a second on the official 40 times, Olav beat Wilson by just one inch in the wide jump, jumping from Wilson’s 10-foot-4 to 10-foot-3. At 6 feet and 3/8 of an inch and 187 pounds, Olav measured slightly larger than Wilson, who measured 5 feet 11 and 3/4 inches and 183 pounds, although Wilson’s arm width (9 7/8 “to 9 1/2 ”), the arm length (32” to 31 1/8 ”) and the wingspan (76 1/2” to 73 1/8 ”) are larger than the Olave.

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None of these numbers will repel the scouts, but because they played in their career in Ohio, no matter how fast they escaped their 40s and no matter how smooth their training, they didn’t have to do anything spectacular in the other drills to leave the combine with their supplies for the first round of traction.

They will have another chance to train for the NFL teams before the draft next month on the Ohio Professional Day on March 23, but so far there are not many boxes left that they really need to check. If it weren’t for both locks to be selected in the first round of the NFL 2022 draft on April 28, they should be now.