linebacker Shaquem Griffin. Photo / Getty Images.
If and when Shaquem Griffin gets drafted, it won't be out of pity.
The linebacker out of Central Florida, a day after impressing both himself and NFL teams by pumping 20 reps on the bench press at 225 pounds — with a prosthetic hand — ran the fastest time of the day in the 40-yard dash.
Griffin's unofficial 4.38 isn't just fast for a person, NFL player or linebacker. If the time holds, it would be the fastest for a linebacker since 2003. The fastest of this year came Saturday, when LSU wide receiver D.J. Clark ran a 4.34.
Griffin, who wasn't even initially invited to the Indianapolis Combine, is trying to become the first one-handed player drafted in the modern era.
The college star had a good start on Sunday during the 225-pound bench press work-outs, doing 20 reps when, "My goal was six."
Griffin clipped his prosthetic hand onto the bar, then leaned back. This wasn't his brother spotting him — the one who he was sure used to surreptitiously help him — but this new spotter was hyping him up and the crowd joined in, and his fellow linebacker prospects.
"Everybody in the stand was hyping me up. I got the guys I'm here with hyping me up. It felt amazing," Griffin said. "I was ready to go. I was ready to attack it."
As his number of reps just kept going, the crowd got more and more shell-shocked.
The crowd was roaring is disbelief.
Can this really be happening?
"I got chill bumps watching him do 20 reps," said NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock.
"I literally choked up a little bit watching him do that and I can't wait to watch him tomorrow."
Griffin was 4 years old when doctors amputated his left hand a day after his mother found him in the kitchen attempting to cut off his jelly-like fingers, which were in scoring pain whenever he touched anything, the result of amniotic band syndrome, a congenital birth defect.
Despite having just one hand, he kept up with his twin brother on and off the field.
As dozens of reporters and photographers gathered around him Saturday, Griffin said, "I thought I was going to walk over here and it was going to be like three people".
Not after becoming the talk of this combine.
"It was amazing, hearing the crowd and having the juices flowing, I mean I felt it," Griffin said. "I didn't know I had it in me."
Using a prosthetic on his left arm, @Shaquemgriffin just put up 20 reps on the bench press! 💪#NFLCombine @UCF_Football
— NFL (@NFL) March 3, 2018
📺: @nflnetwork pic.twitter.com/fHS0b4Eb0s
Griffin said he's mind-set is he always has to do more than those around him to impress coaches.
"I always hold myself to a higher standard than a lot of people just because if we're running drills, if I drop a ball, they're going to like, 'Well, he dropped the ball because he has one hand.'
If anybody else drops a ball, they're going to be like, 'Well, maybe it was a bad ball."'
As a freshman, he couldn't even lift the 45-pound bar, but then he was fitted with the pros ethic and his mum cried when he did his first pull-up.
"It's amazing to see how far I've come from not being able to bench the bar to throwing up 20 reps of 225 and being able to compete with the best here," he said.
He was already the story of the draft combine before his freakish 40-yard dash.
Now it is getting plain silly.
List of every defensive player at the NFL combine to weigh at least 225 lbs and run a sub 4.4 40 (since at least 2000):
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) March 4, 2018
Shaquem Griffin
/end list
Griffin is 227 lbs & ran an unofficial 4.38 in the 40.
Shaquem Griffin was flying 😳😳 he 4.38 lol he not messing around!!!
— Ryan Shazier (@RyanShazier) March 4, 2018