Frankly, true speedsters will get their touchdowns if the play breaks down. Monmouth Evil Monkeys fired at least three huge pass plays against the Honolulu Hurricane Warriors for touchdowns in their USA West Championship game, and Honolulu also had a giant pass play (to a RB for 80 yards) against the Monkeys. Even the indomitable Boston Nighthawks gave up two huge touchdown passes to the Washington Bullets, one of their few games of defensive lapses over their final championship season (I think they were testing things, because WRs were pretty wide open sometimes). Their FSs are not that fast, as far as I can tell.
What did the Nighthawks do against the Monkeys differently? They seemed to have run more cover 2 and whatnot in order to prevent those big plays from happening at all. This actually resulted in them picking off arguably one of the best QBs in the game 4 times, and taking 2 of those back for a pick-six.
Realistically speaking a QB should have maybe 2 seconds at best against an equally matched defensive line, which means WRs have like 3 seconds (counting ball flight time) to get separation. A good example of how ineffective speed usually is is flames54's epic 112 speed WR with 10 first step. Colon Grifter or something, if you wanna look him up. Quite frankly, there simply is not enough time for that 112 speed to have really gotten very far ahead of the CB, and I'm almost certain those CBs weren't THAT fast. He did not dominate the league, after all, so all that speed clearly didn't result in him turning into the second coming of Randy Moss.
What does happen is if he beats the CB, which will happen for OTHER reasons like agility/vision being tested (Head Fake, Pump Fake, etc.), if he's 1 on 1 against like Cover 0 he'll take it to the house, because there's nothing else there, and no one will catch him from behind.
Unless there's an FS in the way, which SHOULD be the case if your team gameplanned properly and your FS has a decent build. As in, you didn't get pump faked and you don't get juked by a speedy receiver, we get to OttawaShane's response in my thread about FS builds as a whole:
"when I first read your stuff about speed, I questioned your logic on speed - but then an important point came to mind - in C1 which is what my teams play, my FS is never having to catch a guy from behind - he needs lots of speed, but mid-80s is actually sufficient for my league which is mainly L35-40 players, as long as the vision and agility are there."
By the point my FS is *behind* the WR on a big play other factors have clearly led to that being the case, because he should never be behind. And really, he almost never is. For instance, if Cover 2 is called, the WR who should be covered by a CB and an SS breaks open because they both get pump faked, and he takes it to the house because I'm on the complete other side of the field, as much as it'd be great if the FS were God, there's really not a whole lot the FS can or should do. What that play calls for is that the FS prevents the receivers *on his side of the field* from taking it to the house, or really just catching it to begin with, and speed will not do much.
Even with Cover 1, there're more important things than Speed, because with sufficient Vision you'll break toward the intended receiver faster (and I believe agility/vision makes you backpedal faster and maintain better positioning), with sufficient Closing Speed you'll have more than enough acceleration and top speed to make it to most WRs assuming you didn't take a crappy angle (Vision), and then it's up to agility and vision to ensure you don't get juked, then strength and tackle to bring him down.
Personally from an actual safety position (not man on WR) I've never been flat-out burned by anyone. Most big plays that get past me that ARE my responsibility are broken tackles or jukes.
EDIT:
http://goallineblitz.com/game/replay.pl?game_id=285851&pbp_id=12471070 (that's what a safety is for i.m.h.o.)
Aside from the closing speed kicking in I don't think you ever hit max speed on that play. Two things that make me go "hmm" about that play: 1) you got pump faked 2) you never actually got in a footrace with the WR, because he never got ahead of you. Again, you never hit max speed, I don't know if he did, and from that play alone I can't tell if you're actually even faster than the WR. It reminds me a lot of this play:
http://goallineblitz.com/game/replay.pl?game_id=210268&pbp_id=6088454The difference is that my player made two really bad vision checks which resulted in me 1) making the decision to play medium field against the TE (while I was backpedaling for an instant I slow down and take a step forward before resuming the backpedal), I would surmise failing the vision check on the receiver's deep route also played into this, and then 2) biting HARD on the pump fake, which obliterated any chance of me being in proper Cover 1 position.
EDIT2:
I mean seriously,
http://goallineblitz.com/game/player.pl?player_id=124758&playoffs=0He just stuck 15 in the Track Star vet, which gives him like 126 speed. Not to mention with play-hard bonus that ends up with him having like 140 speed.
What would be your rationale for entering an arms race with players like that?
At what point do you draw the line?
I'm not saying having high speed is bad, especially because I'll be the first to say build the FS to suit your team's defensive setup, but seriously, attempting to mass speed to run devoted speed receivers from behind is an exercise in futility, IMO.
