I am just curious, I have several rookies on my roster who have great potential. Their current rating is low enough that they don't deserve playing time. Will the offseason help them to improve enough or do I need to make sure they are getting some playing time during the season? Thanks for the help!

I would definitely play them. They will reach their potential much faster. Furthermore, you'd be surprised at how well they will play, even with somewhat lower ratings.

Sweet! Thank you!

In a related note, I've read that potential can decrease, can it also increase? And when can that occur if so?

The biggest movement for potential is during training camp. The further away the future is from the current, the less confident you should be of the future value - it could stay where it's at, but it could also rise or drop significantly before it is reached.

That's good. I like that it can go up as well as down. Makes it more worthwhile to take a punt on a guy who might not be amazing but with a bit of luck could develop into a reasonable player.

You're right about it taking luck. Unfortunately that's all we have to rely on when it comes to a player's potential increasing or decreasing. Coaches have no influence on this.

I wanted to add a question to this thread based on some observations I've made about players that bust. Will a player that drops >5 potential points in his first training camp ever regain that potential? The evidence I've seen suggests that a >5 drop signifies that the player is going to continue to go down before he stabilizes. Is this correct in everyone else's experience?

And on the back of that, I wondered what sort of potential changes occur, in terms of range. 5 points? 10? 50?! :)

Thank you!

Most likely a drop of 5 points or more in training camp is a bad sign, but it's not impossible that they would recover that. The bigger the drop (or gain) the more likely they will trend in that direction.

Most players should stay within 10 points or so of their original future, but occasionally you will see a player that has his future growing faster than his current and could have a huge gain. I don't know if I've seen as high as 50, because most players with less than 50 future don't get a chance, but I have seen 20+ on some late round picks.