Legendary Track Coach Explains Why NFL Speedsters Are at a Disadvantage Ahead of Tyreek Hill vs. Noah Lyles Showdown

As anticipation grows around the long-rumored sprint showdown between NFL star Tyreek Hill and Olympic champion Noah Lyles, some of the sport’s top minds are weighing in—and they’re not exactly betting on the football players.

Veteran sprint coach Mike Holloway, who has produced world and Olympic champions for decades, recently opened up about a critical gap in football training: speed development. And according to him, many NFL teams are overlooking the very thing they claim to value most—elite speed.

“I definitely think it does,” Holloway said when asked if NFL training leaves footballers at a disadvantage on the Ready Set Go podcast. “But I also don’t think that football coaches and strength coaches realize that. That’s the issue.”

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To illustrate his point, Holloway recalled a story from a consultant who had worked with the Carolina Panthers. After observing the team’s training session, the consultant noticed something telling.

“All the players come out there and they do all these drills and all this stuff, and he’s evaluating things. Everybody else leaves—and Christian McCaffrey comes out after everybody else and does a track workout. He does a sprint session.”

The moment sparked an obvious question: Why weren’t the rest of the players doing what the fastest guy on the team was doing?

“You’re trying to figure out a way to do better than him,” Holloway emphasized. “Why don’t you just do what he’s doing?”

That disconnect, he believes, stems from a lack of collaboration. “I’m not trying to bash strength coaches, but I think strength coaches could be better if they tap into the knowledge that track coaches have.”

Former 100m world champion Justin Gatlin echoed Holloway’s concerns, noting that while football has certainly gotten faster, many of its athletes still rely on outdated or incomplete speed training.

“The speed of the game has increased,” Gatlin acknowledged. “And then you watch people who are the fastest football players in history—like a Tyreek Hill—and he still does track workouts. Starting blocks and everything.”

Gatlin’s point? Even someone like Hill, known as the “Cheetah” for his blazing NFL speed, understands that track fundamentals remain unmatched when it comes to acceleration and top-end velocity.

Gatlin’s co-host Rodney Green took it a step further, stressing that most of today’s NFL stars with elite speed share one thing in common: a track background.

“When you look at the NFL, man—all the specialty players that have elite speed—DK Metcalf, Christian McCaffrey... Christian still does a lot of track stuff,” Green said. “His dad believes in the whole train like a track athlete model.”

He also pointed out that Jalen Hurts, among others, ran track in his youth and continues to credit it for his athletic edge.

“These guys will tell you in their interviews: ‘Hey, if you want to get faster, all the drills and stuff—you can do that, that’s like riding a bike. But the one thing you can’t develop in the offseason is speed.’ And that’s why they go to track.”

With talk of Tyreek Hill racing Noah Lyles still generating buzz, Holloway, Gatlin, and Green’s perspectives offer a sobering reality check. 

Even if Hill is one of the fastest men in football, the discipline and technique honed by athletes like Lyles on the track give them a razor-sharp edge in a sprint.

Track speed is not just about raw ability—it’s about years of technical mastery, explosiveness, and refinement that most NFL athletes simply don’t have the time or infrastructure to develop fully.

As Holloway noted, if NFL teams want to see their players hit true top-end speeds, the answer might be simple: “Just do what the fastest guy is doing. That’s track.”