Your Guys In Shorts update for today

 So I'm eating lunch yesterday in a place with lots of sports on lots of TVs, and on one of them they're showing the NFL combine, aka Guys In Shorts Running And Jumping And What-Not. And it's both weird and weirdly compelling.

The weird part is watching prospective NFL tight ends and wide receivers run pass routes against orange cones.

The weirdly compelling part is watching SUV-sized offensive linemen run the 40, even though the only thing that's relevant for an OL is how fast he runs the 5.

Nevertheless, there is this: On the TV screen showing the combine, a man weighing 341 pounds just ran the 40 in 4.87 seconds.

"Wow," I say.

Because, listen, people who weigh 341 pounds cannot normally run the 40 in 4.87 days, let alone 4.87 seconds. Most wouldn't even finish 40 yards. They'd get out there about 20, 25 yards and then say "Ah, screw this."

What this does is remind us that NFL players are not normal, and possibly not human. They do things you and I can't do, and couldn't do without Tony Stark's Ironman gear. 

Forget, for a moment, what it must be like to be 341 pounds and run a 4.87 40.  Imagine instead what it must be like to be on the other end of that 4.87 40. Imagine how it must feel to get hit by something that big moving that fast.

And yet, that happens in the NFL, like, every week. On virtually every play. And somehow the hit-ee (usually) gets up -- and, on the next play, sheds that 341-pound 4.87-second runner like an overcoat on a warm day, runs even faster and collides with another guy who's running even faster.

It's what I think about every time I hear someone say the NFL is like touch football now because no one can hit anyone anymore.

That's only partly true. It's true you can't sack a quarterback with an excess of zeal anymore, or clock a receiver going across the middle, or even bump-and-run him the way you could back in the day. But ...

But that doesn't mean guys still don't get hit. And they're still large men moving very, very fast. And so the layman can't really imagine the level of violence involved in said hits.

I have never stood on an NFL sideline. But I've stood on more Power 5 college football sidelines than I can count, and I've heard what it sounds like when those players collide at full speed.

It sounds like a car crash. I mean, literally, like a car crash.

And that's not anywhere close to the NFL.

So the next time you're compelled to call a guy like Andrew Luck "weak" because he had the good sense to walk away from the game before he turned 30, cue up that 341-pounder running 4.87 again. And then imagine what it must feel like to get hit by a dude like that, and imagine how many times Andrew Luck kept getting up from it despite busted ribs and a lacerated kidney and a smashed shoulder and various wrenched knee and ankle joints.

Then imagine how many times you'd get up.

I'm guessing zero.