INDIANAPOLIS _ As the football world flocks here for the NFL scouting combine to pay annual homage to the 40-yard dash, it’s only fitting that Bengals president Mike Brown is believed to be only owner left who times the NFL’s most hallowed steps.
Paul Brown, his father and the man he helped mid-wife the Bengals into the world 50 years ago, is generally regarded as inventor of the 40-yard dash during the training camps he ran while coaching the Cleveland Browns in the late 1940s.
“I can’t remember my phone number,” Mike Brown says. “But on draft day I know 40 times.