The Redskins Blog

Tuesday, March 2: Darrell Green Discusses His Birthday Jog

http://espn.go.com/videohub/player/embed.swf

When I wrote about DeAngelo Hall’s reaction to Darrell Green’s fiftieth birthday 40-yard-dash, I mentioned that I was a little skeptical of Green’s accomplishment. On reflection, “skeptical” was probably the wrong word; Green has always come across as a fastidiously honest guy, and I certainly didn’t doubt that he had done what he said he’d done. What I wondered, I think, was … well, why?

I haven’t had the chance to ask Green about it yet, but SportsCenter online did, and his answer pretty much boils down to “Because I could.”

Which is fair enough, and also explains why I would ask the question: because where Green could, I certainly couldn’t — and I’m years younger than him. Here’s Green’s full explanation:
“I did it because I was free to do it,” he told the unnamed ESPN cameraman. “I live in America and I can do what I want to do, and I woke up that morning and wanted to do something fun and special — not necessarily for the fans, but for me. It was just something I wanted to do, and I did it. It was pretty fascinating; we put it on Twitter, and people kinda went wacko and bonkers over it.

“But I really didn’t do it for other people. I just did it ’cause … you know, one day — y’all can’t see it, but he’s young behind the camera here — one day you’re gonna be fifty and maybe you’ll do something special [that's] all about you because you’re glad that you woke up that morning.”

Which is actually kind of inspirational. If I get the chance, I hope I can run the 40-at-fifty even half as fast as Green did. I also loved this answer, when asked who would be the toughest receiver for him to cover today:

“At this age? Probably pretty much everybody. If I can cover ‘em, they probably shouldn’t be in the league.”

Hat tip to Mister Irrelevant.