Never in the history of the Scouting Combine had anyone broad-jumped 12 feet. Until today.
Byron Jones, a cornerback from UConn, had a 12-foot, 3-inch broad jump this morning, shattering the old record of 11 feet, 7 inches.
That’s an insanely good broad jump -- so good that it might be the best broad jump in human history. The standing long jump is rarely performed in competitive settings and hasn’t been an Olympic event in 100 years, so it’s hard to find reliable records for it. But Wikipedia lists the world record as 3.71 meters, which would be 12 feet, 2 inches.
Bills receiver Marquise Goodwin was an Olympic long jumper, and he broad jumped 11 feet, 0 inches at the 2013 Combine. Beating an Olympic long jumper by more than a foot in the broad jump is just insane.
The 6-foot-1, 199-pound Jones also put up a 44.5-inch vertical jump, which is just half an inch away from the best vertical at this year’s Combine. Although Jones wasn’t viewed as a great prospect heading into today, he is causing eyebrows to raise and jaws to drop this morning. NFL teams are surely taking notice that they’ve got a freakish athlete on their hands.