Say I pick up a FA that never seen a training camp. What does development look like? Has any taken place while in FA? Will he have regular development when he finally reaches camp? Does age effect development......... does some thing make for the years of camp missed?

Like if a guy is 25 and see his first camp then and on.....will he develop the same number of years and rates until he is say 34 or 35 like as if he started camps as rookie and developed til 30? This question is mostly for players who missed their first few camps.

There is not development that happens during the late free agency stages, if they are on your team at training camp then they essentially get about a full season's worth of development vs. a player that joins your team after TC.

This is why we need to increase the size of the off season roster to more than 60. There are so many players that do not get camp benefits, which means the FA pools end up being terrible.

+1

+1

Have cut days simmed into the pre-season stages to reduce the roster incrementally from 75 to 53.

-100

Not trying to nit pick but wouldn't that make it worse if we had to reduce the roster after each preseason stage??

me personally that would really screw up me to having to cut after each preseason stage which if it did happen I would just cut my team down to 53 and be done with it which I would lose out to seeing if some of the players I drafted , signed , traded for , etc. would actually do enough to stay on my team where I would instead cut someone else.

You can cut down your team to 53 whenever you want, punisher. This would just be modeled after the NFL, which has staggered roster caps that ends with 53 by pre-season's end.

I don't like larger rosters; everything is going to get bloated and more difficult to manage.

I think FAs should develop during training camp, just at a lower, random rate anywhere between a week's worth and three quarters of the season (chalk it up to differences in trainers and work ethic; work ethic could be a hidden attribute or something). The max shouldn't be a season though because you can't expect an FA to make gains equivalent to going through training camp.

for those who don't know it the off-season roster limit was raised to 90 in the nfl in 2012:
taken from nfl.com

NFL increases offseason roster limit to 90 players


By Marc Sessler NFL.com
Around the NFL Writer
Published: April 23, 2012 at 07:19 p.m. Updated: Aug. 3, 2012 at 01:38 a.m.
The NFL has grown in scope with every passing season. It only makes sense the rosters would grow with the game.

The league has increased the offseason roster limit from 80 to 90 players, effective 4 p.m. ET Tuesday. The NFL's Management Council voted on the move Monday, according to league spokesman Greg Aiello.

A few notes:

â?¢ The 90-man roster will include active, inactive, practice-squad, exempt and reserve-list players. It also will house unsigned draft choices and franchise free agents, per Aiello.

â?¢ The NFL announced that the first roster cutdown deadline, from 90 to 75 players, is set for the third week of preseason games.

â?¢ Not a surprise, but only the 51 highest-paid players count toward the salary cap, The Associated Press confirmed Monday.

What it means is that an additional 320 players have a chance to impress a coaching staff between Tuesday and late August. Considering the number of contributors and -- in some cases -- stars that emerged on the NFL landscape through unorthodox channels, it's a positive development for under-the-radar types -- and the fans.

I had no idea it went as high as ninety. That seems a little too complicated for this game, as well as only the top 51 players counting toward the cap. But I would like to see more than 60 players per team develop during the offseason. What if all the free agents did experience some sort of progression, just not the progression benefits that TC offers? Broad strokes: roll up workouts, semi-pro football, practice squads all into one progression package that benefits even the worst players that never make it to training camp. I think that could really improve the depth of the free agent pool.