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Marcus Mariota faster than Jameis Winston, but does it really matter?

If we're judging 40-yard dash times for quarterbacks, we're entering some dangerous territory.

All hail Reggie McNeil, who blazed a sub-4.4 time but never made it as a quarterback and was switched to wide receiver in a nada NFL career. (Other fast 40 times in the same range delivered by more notable quarterbacks include Michael Vick and Robert Griffin III.)

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And on the other end of the spectrum, there are the painfully slow times of yore from Tom Brady and Philip Rivers, who have found ways to work around their foot-speed limitations to have excellent NFL careers.

So take the following 40 times for Marcus Mariota and Jameis Winston — and any other QB, for that matter — with a serious grain of salt.

But it was impressive to watch Mariota, bulked up to 222 pounds, run a 4.52 — best among all QBs — and a 1.57-second 10-yard split that was better than some fast-running wide receivers. That's impressive, in a vacuum.

As for Winston, he ran two 40 times of 4.97 and 4.99, which coaxed Twitter to start digging up those photos of the Florida State quarterback's distended belly a week or so ago. But really, what did we expect him to run? Certainly not markedly faster; that's not his deal.

Tim Tebow, after all, was smack dab right in the middle of both Mariota and Winston — in the mid-4.7s — and what did that mean for his NFL career?

Now, does it raise a corner of an eyebrow that Winston's times were in the same range as 307-pound Hobart offensive lineman Ali Marpet? Perhaps. But it shouldn't take away the perspective of quarterbacks we regard as being respectably athletic for their builds — Tony Romo, Jimmy Garoppolo, Mark Sanchez and Blake Bortles — all turning in times that are in that Winston neighborhood when they were at the NFL scouting combine in years past.

Like any combine metric, perspective is what's most important. Foot speed is far more important to Mariota's game than it is to how Winston plays.

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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at edholm@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!