Kelvin Benjamin Ran Slow 40 To Be A Carolina Panther

Kelvin Benjamin joked to the media that he ran a relatively poor 40-yard-dash in the NFL draft combine because he wanted to play for the Carolina Panthers.

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Kelvin Benjamin isn’t playing like a rookie wide receiver and he’s certainly not playing like a wide receiver who nearly fell out of the first round in the 2014 NFL draft. Thanks to a sub-par 40-yard-dash time though, Benjamin was drafted 28th overall by the Carolina Panthers. If you ask him, it was all by design.

So why exactly did Benjamin run a 4.61 40-yard-dash when he’d previously run a 4.41? “Because I wanted to play for the Carolina Panthers,’’ Benjamin said via ESPN.

Now before we go sounding the alarm, Pro Football Talk reported in a hurry that Benjamin was just kidding and wasn’t even aware he was actually being interviewed. A team source said, “Kelvin was kidding about the Combine. Wasn’t even close to being serious. Didn’t know he was being interviewed for a story.”

So there goes the fun in that story.

It’s hard to believe Benjamin wouldn’t land in the top ten if teams could have a do-over in the draft. The wide receiver corps from this latest draft has been highlighted by Benjamin, Sammy Watkins and Brandin Cooks, who have all taken major roles in their respective offenses. That makes the joke a little more serious, but no one in their right mind would forfeit millions of dollars just to drop to a different team.

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Kelvin Benjamin Ran A Slow 40 Because He Wanted To Be A Carolina Panther

By Cory Buck | Oct 29, 2014

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