Playing time and Work Ethic are the deciding factors in how much a player improves. I lean towards WE being more important than playing time. I've had low WE players play a bunch and only have an average amount of improvement and high WE players take a redshirt and have an above average amount of improvement.

Using some 'Average' things, like a 50 WE and 50 STM with Lots of Upside (I guess 50 STM would net you a solid 20-25 Minutes a Game safely) and an Average Core (say 40), how much Growth in one Ability is common for HD? I ask because the Season is much longer than GD, where you only get 3 Exhibitions and 13 Games for the Regular Season. Only so much time to Practice.

I need this Info to help me 'project' players.

there are folks who have looked with precision at this, but my general sense is that average means that with practice and mins he has an upside of 10-20 points in that rating over his career. High typically means more than 20 points and can be 25-30

you will get annoying assistant coach emails when the player hits his cap in a skill

So when they tell me to work on something else, really work on something else. It's done and won't improve?

when they say that, they mean it - could conceivably move up one more point

now, there are different views on how much to invest in that category once that happens

it has long been thought - and I think seble said it again in the recent dev chat - that it takes 7 mins to maintain a category. (Except that peri and low take less - apx 3). Some folks believe that

Others say that when you get the cap message you can go to zero. In my experience, when you go to zero you sometimes lose a point.

I think it is totally clear that once you get the cap message you should spend no more than 7 on a skill unless all your skills are capped....