Full Spreadsheet of Madden NFL 16 Player Ratings Available Now

[DCEBB2001]

Quote: Originally Posted by ATLBrayden

I remember Dan from FBG Ratings explained that NFL players barely even lose speed if they even lose any throughout their entire careers, and that EA's speed regression is completely out of hand. I find it impossible to believe that every single veteran in the entire league lost speed, and guys like AP and Jamaal Charles both lost 7 speed in a single year, EA just completely overlooked rookies when they toned down speeds.

I have found that some players have gone their entire careers without losing anything. Now, one thing that factors into this, is that most players only are in the league for 3-4 seasons so they haven't even hit the time frame within which they regress. However, for players that have played a long time, they too don't regress very much in 40 time over the course of a career, at least not to the point where a player is losing 20 SPD points in one offseason (when they hit 30).

[DCEBB2001]

Quote: Originally Posted by msdm27

SIDE NOTE: Mario Alford's combine time from nfl.com is 4.43 but somehow he's the fastest player in the game.... SO MUCH FOR "CONSISTENT METHOD" hehe

Alford posted 4.33 at the combine (HH) and 4.27 at his pro day. They are likely referencing his pro day time.

[child_pleaze]

Quote: Originally Posted by BreakingBad2013

DeSean isn't the fastest or most dynamic player in the NFL. He doesn't like physicality, and he can only run 3 routes with confidence. I get his speed is low, but TEs beat him in receiving, he was barely top 15 in 20+ yard catches. Anyways, they screwed the pooch on these speed ratings lol. Going to be fun watching rookie LBs cover the top 5 WRs in the NFL.

He was #1 in catches of 40 or more though and it's not even close

[Yukon46]

Quote: Originally Posted by DCEBB2001

First of all, 40 times should never equate to the SPD rating of a player.

You say this alot... but Madden DOES use it, so what is your point ?

In the game, you will see when a Rookie is listed at running (x) time in the 40 he will be rated (y) for speed.

I am not trying to argue a point of what "It should be ".....

I am stating what it IS.

Quote: Originally Posted by DCEBB2001

That being said, IF they did use the 40 time to equate to SPD, and used the entirety of the scale from 99 to 1 with a linear regression, The threshold for a 90 would be a 4.37. A player who runs a 4.45 would have a SPD of 86. If he fell to a 4.56, his SPD would only drop 5 points to an 81 over the course of 10 seasons. In the case of Driver which I exemplified earlier, his first drop in speed didn't occur until after his 9th season, and that drop was only 0.02 seconds on his 40. This would have dropped him one point after 9 completed seasons. The point I am getting it, no matter the method EA uses, is that the drop off in SPD for players is less significant and takes more time to occur than what EA would have us believe.

I am pretty sure whatever in depth info you have, that was not used by a EA Dev for these ratings.

My best guess is he used a system, based on what the game will do in future seasons, to regress Speed on the initial roster due to years in the league.

[Sheba2011]

Quote: Originally Posted by child_pleaze

He was #1 in catches of 40 or more though and it's not even close

What does that really tell you? A screen pass the goes for 41 yards and a deep pass for 41 yards are both counted as 40+ yard plays. It doesn't really tell you anything without knowing what all those 13 plays were.

[DCEBB2001]

Quote: Originally Posted by Shady Mike

Another guy that doesn't understand that 40 times in shorts mean literally nothing in the NFL Desean Jackson is a top 1 or 2 fastest player in the league with Mike Wallace, period.

IDK about that. I would argue that they mean a lot.

1. Speed is the number one most important thing in the league. There is a reason why faster players are drafted higher and make more money as a result. There is a reason why kids are putting themselves tens of thousands of dollars in debt every November/December to start training for the combine and their pro days. They know that timed speed matters.

2. When National tested olympic timing (electronic start with reaction to electronic finish) in 2011 for the first time at Indy, agents reacted by saying that their clients would SKIP THE COMBINE because of the increased times. National has thus not kept or posted their olympic style times in any of their publications since. Coincidence? I think not.

3. For every Jerry Rice, Anquan Boldin, or Emmett Smith, who all possessed reasonably marginal straight line speed, but had great technical skills, there are literally THOUSANDS of players who never make it to a camp. Not because they are not also possessing great technical skill, but because they don't have the minimal threshold of athletic prerequisites (like speed) to be competitive at the NFL-level. You show me one Jerry Rice who ran a 4.58, and I will show you a thousand WRs who run over 4.58 and never get a shot in the NFL. Canada? Arena? IFL? Sure. NFL? Nope. The numbers show that the faster you are, the better the chance you have at making it in this league.

4. Some NFL teams only care about speed. I had a scout for an NFL team call our DraftScout office back in May and asked for the pro day results spreadsheet from the University of Wyoming (keep in mind that all 32 teams pay for subscription to our data). When our data tech asked him what info he wanted he said he needed only two columns in his PDF. One had names. The other had their 40 times. When the tech asked him why he didn't want anything else, the scout said that his team was only interested in "camp bodies who can run down kicks and punts". That team, which will remain nameless, literally only asked for names and 40 times for prospects who participated at a pro day this spring. That is all they cared about. Yet, a WR or CB who may possess superior technical skills for his position will be overlooked because they only ran 4.6.


To me, there is a lot of evidence to support the argument that speed matters a lot, in shorts or otherwise. People seem to cling to the whole Jerry Rice (4.58)/Emmett Smith (4.70)/Anquan Boldin (4.71) argument, but the fact of the matter is that these great players are statistical outliers when it comes to determining how fast players need to be to make an NFL team.

Out of the 2940 players on an NFL roster right now, the average 40 time is 4.76 seconds. That includes all players at all positions. If you narrow that down to the best rated 53 players on each team, that average drops to 4.73. I have a database of 20895 active free agents or players in other leagues right now and their average 40 time is 4.83, a full tenth slower than the top 53 players for each team based on their overall grade. Again, I do not think that this is coincidence.

I had a conversation with Red Batty, head equipment manager for the Green Bay Packers in March of 2011 and he told me that the amount of weight carried by players in pads is uniformly correlated to the overall weight of the player. That means that a player weighing 350lbs will likely be carrying the same % of padding of a player weighing 170bs. It isn't like every player is carrying the same weight in padding to make some players seemingly carry a lighter load or a heavier load as a percentage of their overall weight. Instead, he told me that it is more closely relative to their individual weight. The bigger the player, the more padding they will likely have. The smaller the player, the less padding they will likely have. The % of weight carried in pads will be pretty similar for every player, regardless of size.

I mention this because I think that it throws the whole "guys run slower in pads anyway" argument right out the window. Every player will run slower in pads, but they are all carrying, according to Mr. Batty, the same % of their own body weight in padded weight. This makes the difference negligible from player to player dependent on size. Now, I would say that players will likely run slower on the field of play, but not for reasons solely pertaining to their pads because everyone is under the same padded conditions.

What the 40 tries to measure is the pure potential for average velocity over distance in conditions that are ideal, knowing full well that a player will likely never run any faster than they do in said conditions. If you can compare all players using this method, why not utilize it? This could digress into further comment about what I deem to be "mythical" game speed, but I won't right now. The larger point is that EA is at least attempting to use uniform data to drive their ratings. That is what we should all want. Now, whether that is being properly done is up for debate, but we should all be happy that they are at least doing something aside from youtube scouting players. The days of "LeSean McCoy broke a 60 yard run, better increase his SPD 10 points" are hopefully over.

[DCEBB2001]

Quote: Originally Posted by Yukon46

You say this alot... but Madden DOES use it, so what is your point ? In the game, you will see when a Rookie is listed at running (x) time in the 40 he will be rated (y) for speed. I am not trying to argue a point of what "It should be "..... I am stating what it IS. I am pretty sure whatever in depth info you have, that was not used by a EA Dev for these ratings. My best guess is he used a system, based on what the game will do in future seasons, to regress Speed on the initial roster due to years in the league.

You have to use the 40 times to derive the SPD and ACC ratings. However, you also have to use the other split times as well to accurately measure maximal velocity and the amount of time it takes to get to that velocity.

From the "What Are Attributes" article:

https://www.easports.com/madden-nfl/...player-ratings

Speed (SPD) – How fast a player runs after fully accelerating.
Acceleration (ACC) – How quickly a player achieves his full speed.

My point is that even if they use 40s, they are not using them properly. Simply taking the fastest time and equating it to the SPD rating is not correct. They need to fully utilize the splits to create a cubic function and determine the exact maximal velocity and the time it took to get to it. Then, they need to incorporate how quickly players slow down or hold their top end speed via the STA rating or some other measure so guys like Jamaal Charles stand out.

If EA is saying SPD = maximum velocity on their own website, but instead they are using AVERAGE VELOCITY (the 40 time is simply average velocity, ie: distance over time), then there is a fundamental flaw in how they are properly implementing speed into their system.

[Rs31632]

Can't open spreadsheet since my excel subscription is up. Can someone list the fastest qbs by speed? Starting with 1-about 9 or 10. Please
Toss in acceleration and throwing power

Much appreciated