[LorenzoDC]

Quote: Originally Posted by Thinking Out Loud

I understand what you are saying but I think you are looking at this the wrong way. First off, the Madden Franchise Playbook video says that there are NOT just hot and cold streaks but in between streaks as well. So this would imply a gradual scale that resets in 3 weeks, bye weeks and at the end of the season. The fact of these being static time frames actually adds to the challenge of making hard decisions, not lessens it. If a players gets on a gradually declining cold streak, benching him until the static duration of the streak wears off, is NOT an easy fix due to the risk/reward balance of player roles and in season progression. You get the reward of not playing a guy for a set duration until they are back to normal. However, the risks of having to potentially play a lesser skilled back-up until then, having the benched player's permanent skill ratings potentially not progress like they naturally would from playing or even actually regress and that could lead to losing player roles or not earning one. Multiply that risk/reward potential for ALL your starters because the more a player actually takes the field, the increased chance of them getting on some kind of streak. All that together makes for a very realistic risk/reward situation because of static streak durations.

I get your point, but one thing I just checked after reading your post was the progression portion of the blog. It doesn't actually say anything about in season progression. It seems to imply an end of year evaluation where baseline progression either goes up or down based on player rank in the context of his same age peers.

If that's the case, then progression is an end of year change just like assignments of roles. In season progression or regression is, in this scenario, more akin to a fluctuation based on performance with the baseline attributes and OVR as the starting point.

Now, in my CB example, maybe my cold streak #1 CB is 30 years old and I have two guys behind him with decent potential who are younger. Maybe then I risk seeing him get stuck cold and play fewer snaps while I invest snaps in my up and comers. Ok, I get that part.

I guess all I really want to hear is that better play can cut a cold streak short, or worse play cut a hot streak short. And I'd like to know if stable, consistent players not only have more shallow streaks, but can maybe have streaks of shorter duration. Because in the real NFL, some players can come back from an off game better than others can.

But I get what you're saying.