INDIANAPOLIS — Edmond Gates of Abilene Christian tied for the fastest 40-yard dash time among wide receivers Sunday at the NFL Scouting Combine, and it turns out he did it with a lingering groin injury.

Gates pulled out of workouts — he’ll just miss the final two cone-drill sessions — after re-aggravating what he called a “deep” groin injury he said he originally suffered in November. The injury re-surfaced during the Senior Bowl last month, and Gates said it has been lingering.

When told of his unofficial 40 time (his official time of 4.37 seconds was released later), Gates seemed genuinely surprised, saying he believed he’d run in the mid-4.4′s. He also said NFL teams were aware of his injury, and although he considered it, sitting out of combine workouts would have been too much for him to handle.

“It’s so hard,” Gates said. “That’s what my trainer and my agent were telling me, but I just can’t do that. I’m too much of a competitor. I couldn’t do it.”

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