Looking deeper into 40 times one glaring effect is the players weight in pounds. An 80 speed wr@198 pounds is faster than a 91 speed RB@217. Heck that same wr is considerably faster than an 88 FB@243.
Speed on the card should reflect actual 40 times with a variance from acceleration. Yes, weight (mass) of a player should govern alot but that effect is too strong as well. I will test really slow small guys and really fast big guys to get limits of the code, but my assumptions through observations and data where similar years ago.
There is no truly athletic freaks(big and fast). The outliers in th real world cannot fit in to our scale. Weight of a player expands the scale at the top end. If my fastest 191 pound player runs a 4.3 than fastest my 237 pound LBer can only be is 4.7....its fast but not as fast as 237 pounders in the nfl. Its quite average...move him to SS. That 30 pound loss can increase his 40 time by at least .3 seconds....aligning him with tops speed @237 in the nfl
If big guys were not penalized so much for weight the game would produce better 40 times. But would big guys make for amazing power backs? The more i think about it this is the worst part of the game. Anyone bigger is being out player by anyone smaller.
That 237 pounder needs to have 95 speed or a 4.4 fourty
Using Body Mass Index and not only mass would smash the speed scale similar to upping the speed of zero, but it will make less speed differnces when the factor of weight is involved. I honestly think this is why smaller is better.
I am assuming we can lower the effect of weight on speed. this probably is the simplest way to close the speed gaps.....in conjunction with raising the value of zero speed. Using BMI would be icing on the cake.
What may be tinkered with is how easy guys change directions with or with out the ball. That part may be too weak. Smaller guys here should be able to change direction with ease and just the opposite for the big guys.
I am almost with Seth some ideas....as IDK if i would smash the speed scale much more....unless it closes the gap of weight on speed as well.