Good points - I have nothing to back it up, but it seems that despite all this, scouts and GMs seem to continue to base their decisions in large part on the small differentials in 40 times.
Yeah maybe it’s just human nature? Also there could be a competitive advantage that speed has that doesn’t show up in box scores. Maybe the faster guys just make more space for other players or cause defenses to make special adjustments.
Also a lot of teams are moving away from the 40 and instead looking at game gps data. The Lions are one of those teams.GM Brad Holmes talked about when he was with the Rams, teams were down on Cooper Kupp because of his slow 40 but the Rams had college GPS data that showed on the field, Kupp was fast. Holmes also said when Amon Ra ran his 4.61 forty, they whole staff cheered because they knew it meant he would be available late in the draft.