A Guide to Progression/Potential and understanding attributes

So i have seen alot of guys don't really understand how this work so im here the help. First thing you have to understand is potential caps which really significantly effect a VERY VERY small group of people. The potential caps effect overall and they are A=99 B=89 C=79 D=69 F=59. I will use a OLB from the year 1 draft to explain this J.Joeckel comes out as a 78 i believe with a C potential this mean he will never ever see a 80 overall no matter what! So i know alot of ppl say well i would never draft a guy like that if he is never going to progress. You would be wrong (lets act as if J.Joeckel don't have a injury of some where around 50). This leads to the next step in the player evaluation process Understanding Attributes, a few attributes that does ABSOULUTLEY NOTHING are awareness and ball carrying vision. Ball carrying vision is a real joke anyway i mean you control the rb what possibly could it do! Well i guess maybe if you just let the cpu control the rb it does something but who does that. But lets get back to J.Joeckel his "Main" attributes are Spd-90 Acc-95 Tkl-80 HP-81 Blks-82 there is no way you would ever guess hes a 78 overall, but his awareness is a 52 so that greatly decreases his overall if his awareness was a 85 his overall would probably be in the 90s and since its established that awareness does absolutely nothing that makes J.Jockel one of the best OLB in the league so who really cares if his overall never goes up.

Now lets get to progression the Attributes that increase are Acc,Carry, Blks, Tkl,Cth,pwrM,FnM,ManC,ZoneC,Press,CIT,ELU TRK and a few more other ones. Now Speed is important due to that fact it never goes up. Now lets use another player as a example of ppl with what i like to call "fake potentials." Michael Turner A potential is one, i use to see falcon complain about him never going up in overall but if you take a closer look at things you will see there was really nothing that could go up. Turner a power back "Main Attributes " are SPD-87 AWR-93 TRK-97 Crry-95 BCV-97 STF-98 if u look at it he really don't have much room for his overall to increase, the Attributes that goes up for a rb is already really high and his low speed holds his overall down so he could never see a 99 overall even though his potential is a A so his overall of 90 is about right.

Another example is a WR i recently obtained B.Cotton 68 overall C potential. his "Main attribues" Spd- 97 ACC-99 Cth-85 CIT-85 SPC-90 his Awr-25 is really low so that makes his overall plummet but will him able to progress to a 79 it means most of his"Main attribues" will have room to significantly improve so if his awareness was a 80 his overall would probably be close to a 90.

In Closing dont let awareness trick you into thing a player is worse or better than they apper since awareness does absolutely nothing.

Great explanation, thanks CP. I guess I was evaluating my players like this wihout actually knowing, because I never payed attention to anything except the attributes I thought were most important. So even if I saw a guy with a low ovr rating, I was looking at the attributes more important to his position.

well if you was looking at attributes, then you know it was a bad move to trade cotton...lol

Not really. I still have 4 other receivers with good attributes at important spots. I managed to do great without him against vista. I gained two picks to help my teams in other areas. If I think it REALLY affects me, I'm sure there will be an identical, if not better or slightly worse receiver in the draft that I could spend any of my picks on.

we shall see when you face better secondaries as the season goes on..

good breakdown, there are a lot of ratings in general that are total placebo numbers but the progression makes sense now. i don't much pay attention to overall, but the speed factor makes sense now as to why overalls never increase. still, even with turner being A potential his catching or something could at least improve past 70 lol...but thats the problem with static progression as opposed to dynamic, if turner had 500 yards receiving his catching rating still wouldn't move since its all predetermined.

Another thing to know, potential is actually a hidden number which determines the highest a player can go. If that # is 90-99 it shows as A, 80-89 shows as B, etc. Just as an example, you used Michael Turner, his 'real' potential is 94, so that's the highest he could ever possibly be. I'm not going to give you any more 'real' potentials, but this should explain some things. Many 'A' pot players have a real pot of 90, so it appears like they are not going up like they should when they really are.

phantomshark wrote:Another thing to know, potential is actually a hidden number which determines the highest a player can go. If that # is 90-99 it shows as A, 80-89 shows as B, etc. Just as an example, you used Michael Turner, his 'real' potential is 94, so that's the highest he could ever possibly be. I'm not going to give you any more 'real' potentials, but this should explain some things. Many 'A' pot players have a real pot of 90, so it appears like they are not going up like they should when they really are.

Yup, and don't forget that just because somebody is an A, young, and lower ovr than their highest potential does not necessarily mean that they will increase every year. As an example, I have Ray Edwards in multiple leagues, and he has fallen from an 85 to an 82 ovr in all of them after the first year, and then to an 80 after the 2nd year. Also, Clay Matthews in this league started as an 85, went to an 89, and then dropped to an 87. Both of these guys are A potentials and were around 25 or 26 years old.

progression is just totally whack, i think we can all agree...it should SOLELY be based off performance...but that would require ea to actually put work into their game.

falconfansince81 wrote:progression is just totally whack, i think we can all agree...it should SOLELY be based off performance...but that would require ea to actually put work into their game.

I don't know about SOLELY, but it should definitely have a big impact.

well im sure age would be a factor as well, but a guy like clay matthews shouldn't be losing points already...

falconfansince81 wrote:well im sure age would be a factor as well, but a guy like clay matthews shouldn't be losing points already...

yeah but there still need to be people who are slow starters but get better with more practice. Lawrence Timmons was a huge bust his first 2 years in the league and hardly played, now he's a stud.

the potential part of this game is whack and could use some tuning but i understand it a lil better. ive noticed that players with low overall dont play like that. i dont but if this is the case then ur gonna have good players with with low overalls because awareness means nothing. as always madden gets it wrong and makes speed the only useful tool in this game. anyways back on topic, i think players with A potential old their ratings a lil bit better as they get older. for example, quentin jammer A potential still hold his mcv at a 92 and and a 96 jam. but his speed drops from an 88 to an 85 but his overall has stayed the same.

Excellent post bro. I've always wondered.

I agree 100% that awareness is inconsequential for player U CONTROL - afterall they are only as good as YOUR PERSONAL AWARENESS!!!! but we cant control all 11 players at the same time!!! so perhaps awareness may mean something for the backside DE when he decides to bite on the counter step of a RB or a LB when he has to decide on how to "split the difference" between 2 players that are threatening his zone! just a thought...

GREENERRRR wrote:I agree 100% that awareness is inconsequential for player U CONTROL - afterall they are only as good as YOUR PERSONAL AWARENESS!!!! but we cant control all 11 players at the same time!!! so perhaps awareness may mean something for the backside DE when he decides to bite on the counter step of a RB or a LB when he has to decide on how to "split the difference" between 2 players that are threatening his zone! just a thought...

i think that does play a big part, as well as its relation to zone coverage. but at what point does the offenses awareness and other ratings trump the d's and by what margin? theres so many variable in the system...which is why i always prefered the all pro football 2k8 system. each player had like a specific attribute to make em stand out, and ratings were calculated not so much by numbers, but strengths and abilities.

i kno EA would like to have you think awareness does something but in my experience it don't