Here are some things I've come up with so far:
College attended, draft year and position all seem to be irrelevant.
The order that they appear on the card are the 4 main skill positions:
QB, RB, WR, TE
Each player represents one of the 4 division (mason is AFC, but the others are NFC)
North - Mason, ravens
South - Vick, falcons
East - Jones, cowboys
West - Davis, 49ers
arguably, the 4 players on the card are the best on their team at that position. I'm guessing UD scrapped this card together after they cherry picked the teams that made up better cards. Maybe these were the final teams left....