Meet Jonah Casey.

He's a high Work Ethic (90) guy, and I was pleased to see that he increased from a 649 OVR to a 662 OVR in the off-season. Some of his improvements even came in relevant and useful categories -

Rebounding up 5 from 94 to 99
Passing up 2 from 25 to 27
Durability up 5 from 94 to 99
Shotblocking up 1 from 53 to 54
Defense up 1 from 40 to 41

As you may have noticed, that is an improvement of 14 points OVR - and yet, his OVR actually increased only 13 points in the off-season.

This is because his Stamina actually decreased 1 point from 73 to 72. Any theories as to why that may have happened?

EDIT to add - no injuries last season and full playing time.

Stamina decreases are fairly common in the off season in my experience

Interesting, pj. I'd never noticed it before.

Categories that are maxed out could drop during offseason.

Stamina often drops over the off-season. If there was an increase, I'd be surprised.

pj is right.  Stamina drops more often than other categories.  

Any ideas why SG Thomas Young experienced a drop in passing in the off-season?

Decent work ethic (58); not maxed out; 9 minutes practice time to finish last year; no injuries last year and lots of playing time.

Passing went up three points during last season (from 32 to 35) and then dropped one in the off-season (now at 34).

From my experience, unless it's a 90's WE guy, any category can see a drop of a point, regardless of potential or gained last season... it just... happens.

Posted by asher413 on 10/15/2011 11:16:00 AM (view original):
From my experience, unless it's a 90's WE guy, any category can see a drop of a point, regardless of potential or gained last season... it just... happens.

The reverse of this is also true- a 40 WE guy might get gains you are not expecting as well     

I've had guys whose Stamina has decreased by up to 5 points in the offseason.  Losing a point is fairly common and is no cause for alarm.

I agree that even the most diceplined guys more often than not experience stamina drop off in the off season.

As far as the drop off in the passing for your other guy, my best guess is that each point actually has smaller breakdown as well (they do this for prestiege why not player ratings as well.) Say for instance that your guy has 35 passing, if you have fractions of a point and since WIS only uses round numbers that means anything from a 34.5 to a 35.4 would be considered a rating of 35. Say this guy just reached 34.5 as the season ended and he dropped .1 of a point he would now be at 34.4 which rounds to 34. This is just a theory, I have no numbers to back it up. Keep an eye on him and see just how fast he gains back that 1 point. That might be some clue as to how accurate my theory is.

The offseason stamina "improvement" is one of the more messed aspects of the game.  Stamina is the easiest physical attribute to maintain (and improve), while athleticism and speed are the hardest, yet stamina is consistently killed in the offseason (I actually had 1 player who finished his career with a worse stamina than when he started it), and speed and athleticism can often receive large (relatively speaking) increases.

I would say probably 7 out of 10 guys have a stamina decrease in the offseason, 2 out of 10 stay steady and 1 out of 10 goes up from my experience.  I don't get why, but that's how it currently works.  Guys who come in with low potential in stamina ALWAYS graduate with a lower stamina rating than they had when they came in and usually see a pretty good drop in the first offseason (3+ points).  Not sure why, but it makes no sense.