Basically, it means you have to deal with bad luck by suddenly putting out a huge amount of points. And if the same player gets hit in TC in consecutive years, you're probably out of luck. It also means that teams that are "lucky" get a benefit by being able to put their points elsewhere - either to paid trainings, trades, and so on.
So here's my (revised) proposal for a new "thing" you can buy with points... Training Camp Insurance (really needs a better name).
Note a player who gets "hit" in TC might see his current ratings drop (e.g., a sophomore slump) since TCI only keeps potential ratings safe, but the player can still fulfill his potential and make those ratings back up over the course of a season or two - he'll just be delayed when he does it.When posting your team's Training Camp options, you may add "Training Camp Insurance" for 10 points per player. Payment must be made prior to training camp.
- Training Camp Insurance may only be purchased for players that are 27 or younger
- If a player protected by TCI suffers a decrease in potential rating during Training Camp, that player's potentials (not current ratings) are restored to their pre-TC ratings.
- A player's "athletic" ratings (Quickness, Strength, Jump, Stamina) are NOT protected as they have no potential ratings.
Teams can now budget points to make sure their core can reach its potential - or they could choose to gamble with the fickle TC gods and hope for the best - but at least now if your player takes a hit in TC, it's because you chose to expose him rather than just "bad luck" - gives control back to the GMs, which I think is the biggest positive here - one of the biggest complaints about TC is that it can destroy rebuilds with no warning; now teams have the ability to protect their rebuild.
The "10 point" figure was chosen to make it require some planning to protect a young franchise player over the course of his rookie and RFA deals but not prohibitively expensive (80 points or so), and allow teams to cover 2-3 core players per year without much trouble... but at the same time too expensive to keep teams from protecting a strong young core (5-6 players) long-term.