Madden 08 Producers Blog: Daniel Castorani

"D-Cas", the one responsible for Devon Hester's 100 speed rating in Madden 08, explains the reasoning behind his decision. EA sports is going to explain the 100 rating with dueling blogs. First up: D-Cas himself.

It seems that everyone opposing the 100 SPD rating likes to point to a disappointing 4.41 second 40 yard dash time that Hester ran at the rookie combine. Now as easy as it is for me to counter with the 4.27 time that he clocked at the Miami Pro Day, I look at this totally differently. Running on a track in skin tight clothing does not directly translate to game day when the pads are on and ball is in your hand. If track speed was all that mattered when it came to being a fast player, than people like Justin Gatling and Michael Johnson would be lining up on Sundays! So how do you measure something so intangible such as game speed? You watch the games. And anyone who watched number 23 run down the field this season had to be amazed.

I don't know, former Minnesota Viking Michael Bennett ran a 4.13 40 time last year. The highest speed rating he garnered from Madden was a 98 in Madden NFL 2005. He has great speed on the track (9.91 100m) and on the football field, but he is an injury prone player.

In 2003, Bennett had consecutive games with multiple 60+ yard runs. No love for Mr. Bennett.

Now before you get all nostalgic on me, I’ll answer the burning question: Does this mean that we have proclaimed Hester to be the fastest man to ever play in the NFL? No. All this means is that we have decided to open the ratings scale up a little bit this year and that Hester deserved to receive the maximum on this scale. If we had decided to do this when Neon Deion was in his prime maybe he would have received the first 100- who knows?

I know that Neon Deion ran a 4.6 40 backward, and that is crazy fast. He would have smoked forward running Legendary WR Jerry rice (4.7 40), and maybe we will see that some day in APF2k9.

I am looking forward to more Madden Producer blogs on this subject and others. I am rooting for both companies EA and 2k sports to succeed in their football endeavors, for competition breeds quality.

Edit: It will also blow playing against the Bears, because cheeser noobs will use Devon Hester everywhere. He will probably even show up as WR.

A more realistic way to show his expertise at returner would be to give him 95 speed and 100 agility and 100 awareness. Speed is much too important in Madden to give someone a 100 that really isn't that fast.