WASHINGTON — Buried in a recent Washington Post article by Rick Snider on Darrell Green is a nugget that most Redskins fans might find hard to believe: Darrell Green is nearly 60 years old.

What those same fans won’t find hard to believe is that Green still possesses world-class speed–and he still wants the validation of the stopwatch.

Green is 57 years old and turns 60 in exactly 25 months. The last time he was clocked in any official capacity was at Redskins Park in 2000, at the age of 40, when he ran a 40-yard-dash in 4.2, not a beat slower than when he was a rookie in 1983:

In 2010, at the age of 50 and eight years after his final game, Green claims to have run a 50 at 4.43. If he had waited two weeks and run it at the 2010 NFL Combine, he would have beaten all but seven rookies, most of them less than half his age.

So what does the former faster man in the NFL think he can do for an encore at age 60, more than 18 years after his playing days? He told Snider he thinks he can run a 4.5 40-yard dash: “I’m also embarrassed to say that, but that would be a sober goal.”

Sober, indeed.

Most NFL players are grateful to still be walking at the age of 60, much less running and training at that level. Green is a physical specimen and always has been. If he had no fear of tearing a hamstring on a footrace in 2000, why should anyone doubt him now?

When Green isn’t training to run faster than any of us can ever imagine, he’s staying quite busy.

In addition to the community service he provides through his charity, the Darrell Green Youth Life Foundation, he still works as the associate athletics director and special assistant to the athletic director at George Mason University.

In the next few weeks, he will join forces with former teammates LaVar Arrington and Brian Mitchell as head coach of the American team at the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl. That game kicks off at 4 p.m. next Saturday on FS1.

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