Fixing the Franchise

For Madden ‘10, franchise mode received a face-lift. Not only did the menu look nicer and run smoother, but the computer-controlled franchises were just a bit more intelligent. But although some aspects of this mode received slight to moderate improvements, offline franchise mode still isn’t the thing to play in Madden. The game gives the player many of the responsibilities of a general manager and head coach of a team, but it still doesn’t quite feel like Scott Pioli making tough decisions about which players should serve as pieces in that championship jigsaw puzzle or Sean Payton trying to develop those pieces and inspire a team. But the game is always improving and evolving, and the Madden development has admitted that they’re slowly building up the features in franchise mode. So to spur this process along, it wouldn’t hurt to have a few opinions from a long-time Madden gamer hoping for a better franchise mode in Madden ‘11:

Player Salaries/Cap Management:
Ok, so this might be a bit different if the salary cap is eliminated in Madden as it will likely be in the real NFL, but player contracts and negotiations are all out of whack. Players just flat out demand too much money and there’s not a lot of room for negotiation. And some teams just have trouble bringing in free agents and sometimes even re-signing decent players from a certain position group (I’ve had so much trouble re-signing offensive linemen without paying an arm and a leg as the Green Bay Packers). Supposedly the computer teams in Madden ’10’s franchise mode would be smarter and teams wouldn’t release superstar players often because they were so highly valued. But after three seasons of franchise mode, I found Drew Brees, Tracy Porter (rated an 89 at the time), DeSean Jackson, Chad Ochocinco, Matt Forte, Jon Beason, Leon Hall (rated 91 at the time) and even Troy Polamalu all in the free agency bin. Something is very wrong with this picture. Apparently the computer can’t even manage the salary cap! So to fix this, the best route would be to first make mediocre and subpar players ask for typically less money, and secondly, make negotiations a bit more flexible. Also, restricted free agency should be reinstated into the game since that was a cheap and easy way to keep young players on the team. This feature will greatly increase the willingness of players to play more seasons in franchise mode.

Lingering Injuries:
Another fun new feature would be the addition of injuries that stick with a player for weeks or even an entire season. Green Bay Packer halfback, Ryan Grant, said in 2008 that an injury held him back all year. He didn’t have quite the burst he had during his first year as a starting halfback in Green Bay, and his injury was his scapegoat when his yards per carry went from 5.1 to 3.9 the next year. Madden should include injuries that don’t necessarily keep players out for the game, but if the player continues to play, the injury will hurt certain rating categories when he is put into the game. Madden has that right now during games. If you put a player in the game who is out for two quarters, then he’s not going to have the same athleticism that he’d have if you’d have just let him rest those two quarters. But this applies on a seasonal basis as well. First of all, players need to be considered “probable,” “questionable,” or “doubtful” in the weeks following an injury. If a player continues to play with one of these statuses, his ratings should suffer to a certain degree depending on the severity of the injury. However, if the player sits out or experiences limited action in a game (by the choice of either the player or the coach, but don’t expect a player with a 95 toughness rating to want to ride the bench) the player’s lingering injury will be less significant in the following game. This should introduce the in-game strategy of whether or not to use a player and introduce it to the long-term gameplan. Say you’ve got a halfback with a lingering knee injury and your schedule gets a lot tougher at the end of the season. You may want to rest your halfback so that he’ll be fully prepared to take on the big-name teams and finish the season strong.

Emphasis on Player Personality:
In the world of Madden, Jay Cutler would play quarterback for the Denver Broncos for the rest of his career. Terrell Owens wouldn’t have jumped from the Niners to the Eagles to the Cowboys and then the Bills. Brandon Marshall wouldn’t have tried to hold out before the 2009 season. It’s tough to account for what players will do, but that’s why there should be a personality rating, or even just a letter grade for player personality. All the aforementioned players in this section would have relatively low personality ratings. The game also needs to bring back the morale meter because a player with a low personality rating would be more affected when the team loses too many games, when he doesn’t get the ball enough, when the player is franchise tagged, or when the team releases or trades a star player. If the morale meter gets too low, a player may hold out (by the way, this is a perfect opportunity to bring back holdouts, since now only players with low or medium personality ratings will hold out) or he won’t put forth any effort in practice or become a distraction which will lower the composure and/or morale ratings of other players on the team. This would make the task of managing a team more challenging, but also more realistic, because in reality, every NFL team is concerned with the character issues. As a bonus, though, if you have a team like the Green Bay Packers (the team has mostly high-character players) you’ll have players who don’t react too much when the team struggles for a season, and they won’t all try to make outrageous amounts of money in their new contracts (Greg Jennings should have a high personality rating for signing such a modest contract before the 2009 NFL Season began). But there’s another aspect of how players act that’s very important to how a team plays.

Locker Room Leadership:
Every team has leaders – these guys are almost always vocal in the locker room and can inspire other players with their motivational abilities and work ethic. They motivate the players around them, and can help others progress their abilities and exceed expectations at times. NFL analysts always talk about locker room leaders and veteran leadership and how those attributes factor into a player’s contribution to a team. So it’s about time Madden reflected the importance of these verbal leaders. A team might be less likely to drop these players in the offseason if they give the other players bonuses during clutch moments in games or help other players from that position group progress quicker. Teams wouldn’t want a loss of veteran leadership to cause the team ratings to fall during the fourth quarter of a close game. A leadership rating might be a way to help out with this problem, or it could contribute to the personality rating. These leaders would make great team captains, too.

Selecting the Right Players for the Scheme:
Not many people would argue that Dwight Freeney is an excellent defensive end. But if the Baltimore Ravens acquired him to play defensive end, it probably wouldn’t be the best idea. The Ravens employ a 3-4 scheme, which means the defensive ends must weigh close to 300 lbs. and take up some space on the line. Freeney is about 6′1″ and 268 lbs. So the Ravens would probably never pick up Freeney unless they wanted him to play outside linebacker. But teams in Madden don’t really know the difference in franchise mode. Many players just don’t fit a team’s scheme, but the team signs one of those players. This could easily be remedied with some more coaching sliders (and having the coaching sliders actually affect the game). On offense, a slider should exist for how often a team opts to throw the short, medium and deep pass, and another for how often the team runs to the left and right, middle, off-tackle, or sweep. So if an offense prefers the short pass, that team will try to sign receivers who have running skills and can possibly beat the press so they can catch the short passes and make some moves to get extra yardage. On defense, the sliders should impact how often a coach calls for a blitz and man or zone coverage, and how often the corners press receivers for starters. That way, a team that prefers to blitz will search for more players with power or finesse moves and the ability to shed blocks.