NFL
Who is the fastest player in the NFL?
Cowboys WR KaVontae Turpin showed off his speed on Sunday with a 99-yard TD on a punt return against the Commanders, but is he the fastest in the league?
On Sunday, the Dallas Cowboys pulled off a miracle and beat the Washington Commanders on the road. There were a lot of contributing factors, but what people will remember most is special teams wide receiver KaVontae Turpin’s 99-yard punt return for a touchdown with less than three minutes in the game.
At first, Austin Seibert’s punt landed and bounced between Turpin’s legs, but he recovered it (with one hand, no less) and ran about 10 yards before pulling off a spin move to bamboozle half a dozen Commanders players, and then turned on the jets to show off his impressive speed and run it all the way down to the end zone untouched, and put Dallas up by 10 in a crazy finish.
“Once I hit the spin move and I got through, I knew for sure it was a touchdown,” Turpin said.
Fastest man in the NFL in 2024
Just one week before Turpin pulled off this insane move, he surpassed Jacksonville Jaguars receiver Brian Thomas Jr. as the fastest player in the NFL this season. In Week 11, Turpin recorded the fastest speed of any player in an NFL game this season with a 64-yard touchdown catch and run against the Houston Texans, reaching a top speed of 22.36 miles per hour according to NextGen Stats.
Before that, Thomas reached 22.15 miles per hour in Week 5 on an 85-yard touchdown pass from Trevor Lawrence. Not only did Turpin surpass Thomas, but he also happened to eclipse the top speed from the 2023 season, which belonged to Seattle Seahawks wide receiver DK Metcalf, who reached 22.23 miles per hour on a 73-yard touchdown in Week 13 last year.
Turpin’s speed is not the fastest of all time, but the fastest since 2020, when Raheem Mostert set the NFL record with an 80-yard rushing touchdown that saw the then San Francisco 49ers running back reach 23.09 miles per hour.
As for this Sunday’s spin move/touchdown run, Turpin reached a top speed of 21.35 miles per hour, the third-fastest top speed on a kickoff return this season.
As mentioned here, Turpin is now responsible for three of the 20 fastest speeds by a ball-carrier in 2024, with Eagles running back Saquon Barkley the only other player to have three in the top 20.
In 2019, at his Pro Day, Turpin ran the 40-yard dash in 4.31 seconds. He joined the Cowboys in 2022 after playing in the football minor leagues.
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