A curious question emerges about Carnell Tate's official 40-yard dash time

There is no doubt that former Ohio State receiver Carnell Tate is a Lego guy. There is supposedly some doubt as to the accuracy of his official 40-yard dash time at the Scouting Combine.

Tate was officially timed at 4.52 seconds. Via Drew Lerner of Awful Announcing, a high-profile insider has pushed back on a number that, thanks to laser-based timing, never lies.

As tweeted by Adam Schefter of ESPN, Tate "was timed by several NFL executives and GMs on Saturday with a 40 time in the range of 4.45-4.47 seconds." Adds Schefter: "Although the combine registers official times, teams always conduct their own timing, and those measurements with some teams were lower than his clocked 4.52."

Yes, teams still do hand timing. But the official timing is far more reliable, given the natural inaccuracies that come from a human being clicking the button twice — once to start the clock and once to stop it.

If some teams had Tate a couple of hundredths of seconds faster than his official time, some may have had him a couple of hundredths of a second slower. It all comes down to whether they clicked at the right time, both times.

Which is why the Scouting Combine does not rely on hand-based timing for the start and the finish. (That said, the Scouting Combine still uses a hand-based start with a laser finish; the best approach would be to use an electronic start and an electronic finish.)

The broader point, as addressed by Lerner, is that some are seeing through Schefter's "report" as an effort to do a favor for Tate's agent, Drew Rosenhaus. It's part of the gig, and it's something that — to the trained eye — is instantly recognizable.

Did Schefter canvass multiple teams for their numbers, or did he simply copy and paste a text from Rosenhaus? Given the way the insider sausage gets made, the far safer bet is the latter.

While not as problematic as proclaiming Deshaun Watson’s innocence after he was not indicted in 2022 or a one-sided presentation of domestic violence allegations against former NFL running back Dalvin Cook, the formula is the same, for plenty of folks who rely on agents for information.

Sometimes, they've got to hold their noses and press "post" in order to stay at the front of the line for the never ending flow of tidbits about transactions. It's an occupational hazard, part of the price to pay in order to get paid.