We consider the effects of the ratio of average bond length, l(0), to excluded volume bead diameter, d(0), on the dynamics of dense liquids of freely jointed bead-spring polymer chains. Monodisperse (N=50) systems for which 0.731, which in turn increases the volume density and optimizes packing. Friction coefficients depend on local density (i.e., density of nearest neighbors around any monomer) in a manner akin to the empirical relationship between diffusivity and total number density in simple Lennard-Jones fluids [Levesque and Verlet, Phys. Rev. A 2, 2514 (1970)]. This work demonstrates the degree of interplay between structure and dynamics in macromolecular liquids.