I'm posting this to open up a frank discussion on speed and how speed works in the game. I'm finding far too many owners don't understand the speed rating, and it's leading to a lot of arguments.
Let's get this out of the way right now. There is a lot of hidden math in this game, which is great if you can do estimate complex equations in your head, but terrible if you think that game cards actually show a linear difference between players.
Speed is one of these complex equations.
DefinitionHere's JDB's definition of speed: "It's actually just a downward-opening quadratic as opposed to exponential or logarithmic, where the vertex of the parabola is at 100. Basically it just slows down the impact of increasing numbers as you near 100 and increases the impact of decreasing numbers as you approach 0."
But, Seth, I have no idea what that means?If we want to think through what this parabola looks like when compared to the Speed listed on the player card, we need to think about what the displayed speed compared to a linear scale. This means we need to think about a parabola that intersects at the origin and has its line of symmetry where x = 100 with a max y of 100.
Not to take you back all the way to junior high algebra, but that gives us an equation like this:
-((0.1X-10)^2)+100 = y
2X - 0.01X^2 = y
Note: This is not the actual speed equation unless I can guess really, really good. This is used as an example of comparing linear distance to distance on the parabola.
Also, if I have gotten this wrong, someone let me know. It's been a long time since I was in junior high algebra myself.
Great, but what does that really mean?It means exactly what JDB says above. The closer you get to 100, the less of a gap there is between Speed ratings.
Let's take the following 5 players:
Player A: 64 Speed (Displayed)
Player B: 75 Speed (Displayed)
Player C: 84 Speed (Displayed)
Player D: 91 Speed (Displayed)
Player E: 96 Speed (Displayed)
On a linear scale, each player has a 10 point gap between them, which means the player would need to be 10 Speed points faster to equal the next player.
On the parabolic scale, A actually needs 11 speed points to reach Player B; but, Player B need 9 to reach Player C. Player C needs 7 to reach Player D, and Player D only need 5 to reach Player E.
Caution: This works the other way too!If anything, what this should show you is to never play a LB at below 80 SP ... ever.
Let's take a 90 Speed RB. An 80 SP LB would need 12 linear points to equal the RB. An 85 SP LB would need 6 linear points. An 88 SP LB would need 2 linear points (this is the intersection point), and a 89 SP LB would need 0-1 linear points.
This means that a max SP LB at 237# is equal or faster than 95% of RBs.
It's only until an RB gets to that magical 95 SP number, which is only possible by playing an RB at WR, that an 89 SP LB needs 10 linear points to equal it.