I've been practicing and playing both M2M and press the last few seasons. It made sense to me to teach my guys a 2nd defense since most players maxed out their cores by their junior year anyway, and I could generate a few more turnovers against poor ballhandling teams with the press.

Now with the new engine, I'm wondering if I should go back to just one defense. Players are supposed to be developing slower, and have more potential for improvement, so I'm wondering if it's better for me to have them develop their IQ's and potential quicker than to keep a second defense? My players are a little better-built for M2M than press anyway.Thanks in advance.

I might be mistaken, but I don't think the "slower progression" applies to player IQ's...I think the rate of progression from F to A+ remains the same. Only the player ratings progression has been slowed, from what I understand.

I stuck with my press/zone blend the first new engine season. I don't think over the long run that the 10-20 minutes you spend in team practice on your non-primary set really will make that big of a difference in the long run. It still looks to me like playing time more than practice time plays the biggest role in attribute improvement.

Right, my point was that since player ratings progression has slowed down, I wonder if a good way to counter that might be to pump more mins into player ratings growth by eliminating my secondary defense. You may be right that the extra 15-20 mins won't make an enormous difference in growing my players' ratings, but if I spread that across 3-4 core attributes, that's an extra 5 mins a day on each of them. That's why I'm kind of split on it.