Player Development

[Mike3207]

Ok, I'm going to make a new thread about player development. It's something I've been working on say the last 2-3 years in my dynasty. Keep in mind I'm basing all this on a number of precepts:

1. You want all sub coaches to be 5 in development if possible, 4 minimum

This can be especially hard with the STC, but do your best to get all sub coaches to this level.

2. You keep all/most coaches who are good at player development

It's not too hard to replace position coaches who are good at player development, but think twice about firing coordinators who go to 4 or 5. There are a lot of coordinators with subpar player development out there.

3. You buy both Superb Strategist and Leadership to bring all subcoaches to max player development.

Do keep in mind Leadership only improves player development while they're on your team, otherwise it has no impact. As for Superb Strategist, why would you not want to improve all coaches player development. It's the only special skill in the game that will improve development potential for your very sub coaches.





I'll go into first a breakdown of the 3 player development groups-then breakdown all positions and add how my players did in a sim. For the record, my HC has 4 in almost all Intangibles, 4 in Physical with defense, 4 at TE, 3 in all other offense. I'm currently working to get HB/WR/OL to 4 in Physical Development.

[Mike3207]

Learning development

Ratings:

Learning

I've changed my mind on learning development a bit. I now think it not only progresses the Learning rating, but has a impact on play knowledge as well. I'm not entirely sure at this point if Lrn Dev 5 would allow you to do a play in 1 rep, but I have seen at 2 you will learn a play in 4-5 reps. I now think the priority has to be-Intangibles, Learning, Physical.

[Mike3207]

Physical Development

Ratings:

Speed
Strength
Agility
Acceleration
Jump
Run Block Strength
Pass Block Strength
Kick Power
Throw Power

It's more of a priority to put points in the positions that rely on speed attributes, because they decline as your players get older. You might put points in RB/WR/DB first because they are your speed positions. I will say the physical ratings are very slow to progress at certain positions, even if all coaches have Speed and Strength Training.I'll go into that a little more later.

[Mike3207]

Intangible Development

Ratings:

All other Ratings

Just about all the other ratings are Intangible. You'll definitely do best at player development if you focus on getting all Intangible ratings to 4 first. I'd say 75% of the player ratings are intangible.

I'll add with Intangibles that there are 2 types of Intangible ratings in my opinion-General and Situational. The General Ratings are the ratings that progress all the time-say for a receiver Awareness, Route Running, Catch as an example.

The Situational Ratings only progress when you do a action in game/sim. Keeping with the above example-the Situational ratings for a receiver are Release/Spectacular Catch/ Catch in Traffic. The Situational rating will progress much slower than the General ones.If you want a player to max out the Situational ratings, most likely you'll need to get your HC to 5 at that position.I'll identify each position with the General/Situational ratings later.

[algoody421]

The reason you put learning to 5 is because at that position, in one rep, everyone will master the play. That will allow them to excel because of the huge ratings boost. If you cant reason going to 5, at least to 4 is my advice.

Also, while special skills are nice, Ive been playing a career without them and its been much more entertaining and challenging. To each their own though, I used to buy all the special skills, now I develop every position. Either way can lead to championships though.

Finally, to add difficulty, do the opposite of keeping coordinators. I try to have a revolving door every 1-3 years at both. This will allow them to become hcs and o/dc somewhere else and improve your competition. I already have 2 coaches as hc who were my dcs the 2 years before(Ron rivera and ted cotrell) Im only in the 4th season(2011-12). Food for thought...

Otherwise, great info here.

[Mike3207]

Quarterbacks

Quarterbacks are one of the positions that don't need a lot of help to reach max progression very fast. Start a QB every game, get them to learn the playbook, and they should reach max progression before a RFA contract ends.

The only problem I've seen with developing QB's is the speed ratings-Speed, Agility, Acceleration. I've never seen any of these progress, but I don't use a Option Playbook. The only way you might see these ratings progress is if you were to use a lot of option plays in your playbook.

[algoody421]

Just so you know, there's one more athletic rating, Throw Power(arm strength). I Just saw a screen between loading a career and it said that is under athletic with speed agility and strength.

[Mike3207]

Fullbacks

The one thing I'll be sure to mention on developing fullbacks-put some points in RB development with your HC! If you can believe it, Carl Stewart never maxed out learning for me in 6 years. It's one of the positions I would invest in putting points in learning development. I really haven't seen any progress in developing fullbacks until this last year-when I finally got RB skills up with my HC.

All ratings progressed are to the end of the playoffs.

Truck-79-39-0
Awareness-71-66, 74-234
Carry-70-0, 71-334
Catch-60-592, 61-253
IMB-77-774, 84-808
Run Block- 63-614, 66-750
RBF- 66-614, 67-150
PBF-65-614, 67-750
Lrn-77-150, 85-415