Anthony Richardson sat on a bench near the host stand at the Yard House on Saturday night as his party waited for a table that could accommodate 12. On his phone, the former Florida quarterback rewatched the 4.43-second run that could change his professional destination. His party landed at that restaurant because the original plan got scuttled. His crew of trainers and managers originally had targeted a different place, but it only served people 21 and older and Richardson won’t be 21 until May.

Richardson stared at his phone and saw all 244 pounds of himself hurtle down the sideline on the field at Lucas Oil Stadium. He only ran the 40-yard dash once Saturday. It might be the last 40-yard dash he runs in his life. He finished the run — which might have been a touch faster had he not veered left midway through — and someone on the field told Richardson that he might have run an unofficial time of 4.44. Richardson already suspected he’d hit his target time. “I heard the crowd cheering,” he said. “And I knew I had it.”

A few seconds later, former NFL receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh, unmissable in a salmon sweatsuit, passed along that Richardson was indeed timed unofficially at 4.44 seconds. Richardson looked up at the video board to confirm that news. He smiled wide and skipped across the field. Everything was going according to plan.

Tom Gormely knew when he saw Richardson’s first step Saturday that the 40 time would get the NFL world buzzing. “Holy sh—,” Gormely said to himself. “That’s going to be fast.”

Gormely, a physical therapist who runs Tork Sports Performance in St. Augustine, Fla., has worked with Richardson the past few months in conjunction with quarterback trainers Denny Thompson and Will Hewlett. Gormely worked mainly with baseball players before a stint with quarterback Nathan Peterman showed he could help football players as well. This is the same group that prepped 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy for the draft last season, and the team has a singular goal: “Back to back picks,” Gormely said.

San Francisco famously selected Purdy with the final pick of the draft last year with nary a clue the former Iowa State star would wind up piloting the team to the NFC title game. D.J. Stewart, an outfielder in the Mets organization who trains at Tork in the offseason, pointed out to Gormely that if some NFL team is sufficiently entranced by Richardson’s blend of arm strength, size, speed and athleticism, it’s possible the group will wind up training the last pick of the 2022 draft and the first pick of the 2023 draft.