A few days ago, SB Nation put together a team built around the best NFL Scouting Combine performances of all time. The San Francisco 49ers don’t have as many representatives as some other teams, but there are three notable names on the list.
Tight end Vernon Davis is the 49ers former 49ers player listed, and he’s the only tight end. Most positions have multiple players listed, but they didn’t need another after Davis, who started out his career as a draft bust but eventually turned into one that was pretty darn successful.
“The easiest pick at any position,” the article says about Davis. He ran a 4.38 40-yard dash at 254 pounds. He is also still among the top players in most drills, including both jumping drills and the bench press.
Any of you remember Taylor Mays, the safety out of USC? Extremely hard hitter, very fast, nearly zero awareness, to put it in Madden terms? He was (maybe still is) an athletic freak. Mays joined a group of safeties that included Michael Lewis and Reggie Smith. A year after the 49ers spend a second-round pick on him, the 49ers traded him to the Cincinnati Bengals for a seventh-round pick, and Mike Singletary was fired.
In 2016, Mays rejoined the Bengals, and was suspended for violating the league’s substance abuse policy. Wikipedia tells me he’s joined the Saskatchewan Roughriders practice squad.
Finally, the last 49ers player to appear on the list is Deion Sanders, who famously had a phenomenal combine moment when nobody was expecting him to run the 40-yard dash. Then he ran it, and put up a 4.3. Then he ran another, and it was faster, and when he finished the 40, he continues on running through the tunnel and out of the combine.
Pretty legendary. Sanders spent one season with the 49ers, and happened win a Super Bowl with the team while doing so.