How Fast is That Wide Receiver Running?
Jason Marshall, PhD
Have you ever watched a football game and wondered exactly how fast a wide receiver is running towards the end zone? Are players jetting down the field at 5 mph, 10 mph, maybe 20 mph, or even faster?
In honor of the start of the NFL season, today’s post is aimed at teaching you an easy method that you can use to answer this question for yourself…and for all your friends at game day parties too. There’s a longer Math Dude article on this topic, so if you want to know all the details, be sure to check that out.
The first thing to know is that speed (which is typically measured in miles per hour in the US) is just a measure of the total distance travelled divided by the time it takes to cover that distance. So 30 miles per hour means that if you move at 30 miles per hour for 1 hour, you’ll travel 30 miles. Easy!
Once you know that, the trick to figuring out how fast a football player is running down the field is to know that a speed of 10 yards per second (notice that this is once again a distance travelled divided by a time travelled…just like miles per hour) is about the same as 20 mph:
10 yards / sec ≈ 20 miles / hour
So if you see that it takes a player 1 second to run 10 yards (which is easy to do on a football field since there are big lines running all the way across the field every 5 yards), then the player must be running about 20 miles per hour. If it instead takes him 2 seconds to cover that same 10 yards, then his speed must be only 10 miles per hour.
And that’s the trick! So the next time you’re watching a football game, you can impress your friends by telling them how fast everybody is running. It’s sure to give a whole new perspective on what’s taking place on the field!
Football Player image courtesy of Shutterstock
About the Author
Jason Marshall is the author of The Math Dude’s Quick and Dirty Guide to Algebra. He provides clear explanations of math terms and principles, and his simple tricks for solving basic algebra problems will have even the most math-phobic person looking forward to working out whatever math problem comes their way.