On the grid that shows you each attribute and color codes them red, black and yellow will blue go to black then red? or does it go right from blue to red?

Blue is high(21 points plus), which goes down to black which is average(7 points plus), which goes down to red which is low(less than seven points)

On a semi-related note, I've always wondered if the color impacts the rate at which a player improves. Let's say a player whose potential is blue improves one point per day based on my practice settings, etc. Nothing changes about practice settings or minutes played per game and he has now improved to the point where his potential just turned from black to red. Should he still improve one point per day until he maxes out, or do those few remaining points take more effort to get?

I *think* (dangerous, I know...) that the closer a player gets to their max potential, the harder those last points become to gain. It also depends where on the 0-100 scale the attribute in question falls though. It's fairly accepted that it is harder to bump a rating 1 point if its in the 0-20 or 80-100 range than it is to get that same 1-point bump on a rating that's closer to center in the 40-60 range.

improvement has been compared to a bell curve where low or high ratings improve slowly while the ratings towards the middle improve faster. Not sure its truly a bell or anything, but it helps to visualize.

Back to my question...will the color codes go from blue to black to red or do they just go from blue to red?

Yes, they will change from blue to black (when the player goes from 21 down to 20 points remaining to his potential)...and then from black to red (when he gets within 7 points of his max potential). The only exception is work ethic, which always stays black and, as far as I know, has no "cap"