Football announcers rarely understand track & field. Otherwise they wouldn't suggest that some 'kinda fast' cornerback possesses "world-class speed" or spout that a 40-yard hand time taken by an aging coach was definitive proof that a fleet wide receiver could somehow challenge the world's swiftest.

[YouTube Video Link -  100m final from olympic games Tokyo 1964]

There are notable exceptions, after all Baylor's Robert Griffin III, who took home the Heisman Trophy earlier this month, was a sub-50 second 400m hurdler in high school down in Texas.

There have been a lot of burners in the NFL, but you can bypass the notable likes of Darrell Green, Herschel Walker, Willie Gault and Lam Jones. Rod Woodson, Ollie Matson, Eric Metcalf, Bo Jackson and O.J. Simpson, too. Even the great Renaldo Nehemiah has to take a backseat to the GOAT — Bullet Bob Hayes.

If he were alive today, he'd be getting ready to celebrate his 69th birthday on Tuesday. Perhaps he'd take a moment to reflect on his amazing double gold in Tokyo nearly 50 years ago.

The videos here speak better than any words. A random lane draw for the 100-meter final put him in lane 1, which was chewed up from other events, yet he powered his way to a world record. Then, in the final race of his career, Hayes took the stick in the 4x100-meter relay in fifth place and had one of the most remarkable splits in history, giving the otherwise so-so U.S. team a world mark.

But Hayes was "a football player first," according his Florida A&M Coach Jake Gaither. In a Sports Illustrated piece from the 1960s, Gaither added, "If he had to choose one or the other he'd have chucked his track shoes out the window."

[YouTube Video Link -  USA 4 x 100m relay 1964 Tokyo Olympics World Record]

And boy, did he change the game. Just seven years into his NFL career, Hayes had hauled in 67 touchdown catches. At that time (1971), only seven guys had caught that many and now five — Don Hutson, Don Maynard, Tommy McDonald, Lance Alworth and Raymond Berry — are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Hayes got there himself in 2009, but his induction (following a controversial exclusion) came seven years after he'd passed away. Paul Zimmerman of Sports Illustrated, who stepped down from the Hall of Fame committee because the Bullet's 2004 Hall snub, wrote of Hayes after his passing:

They followed him into the NFL like rats following the Pied Piper. Olympic sprinters and hurdlers were handed a uniform and told to catch the ball and run away from people, just like Bob Hayes did.

Speed is what Hayes brought into the league in 1965, more speed than anyone had ever seen on a football field. And when the rest of the NFL saw how he stretched defenses and forced them to go to all sorts of zones to try to stop him, general managers pored over copies of Track & Field News and sent out their invites.

Olympic sprint champ Jimmy Hines got a shot in Miami. John Carlos and Tommie Smith washed out with the Eagles and the Bengals, respectively, after the Mexico City Games. And Harvey Nairn, an NAIA hurdles champ, spent time with the Jets. (The raw speed that Nairn flashed on one play in an exhibition game — he blew by Lions cornerback Lem Barney… and then dropped a pass — was enough to earn him paychecks for two years as a member of the Jets' taxi squad.) Everyone wanted another Bob Hayes, the only man ever to win an individual Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring, but there has never been another one.

Take note of that, football announcers.