This is a follow-up to the previous topic, in which I talked about gameplanning, and Madden's general failure to simulate the process of gameplanning for an opponent. This time, I will be talking more about the procedural element of preparing for the next opponent, which is the various practice and preparatory tasks that coaches and players perform in the week leading up to a match. Weekly practice is something that Madden also currently fails to simulate. But it's also something that Madden (and other football games from other developers) has made multiple attempts at emulating in the past. Some of the previous solutions that EA came up with are, in my opinion, much better than what is available now.

Skill Trainer was good practice!

I will begin by actually ranting about something that I like in modern-ish Madden!

Up until a few years ago, Madden's Franchise Mode allowed the user to play Skill Trainer drills for offense and defense as your weekly practice. In general, I love the Skill Trainer in Madden! I genuinely think that it is one of the best features that has ever been included in any sports video game ever. In addition to acting as a series of gameplay tutorials, the Skill Trainer also makes an effort to teach some basic football concepts and strategies to gamers. The Skill Trainer teaches users things ranging from how blocking schemes work, to how to read the conflict defender on option plays, to how to read different route combinations against different defenses. And it also teaches some defensive concepts such as how to play as a force or cutback contain defender, and which defensive coverages are designed to stop which route combinations, and much more!

The fact that EA used to incorporate these tutorials into Franchise Mode was especially genius. Each week, you could choose one offensive and 1 defensive Skill Trainer drill to run. Depending on how well you performed in the drills, your team would get scaled ratings boost whenever you call the relevant plays in the upcoming match. This allows the player to take the role of a coach and choose specific concepts to practice and focus on in a given week, depending on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the opposing team. If that sounds a heck of a lot like how I described actual NFL gameplanning in the previous installment, then yeah! That's kind of the point! Madden used to do this, and do it fairly well, but it doesn't any more.

Skill Trainer drills used to be part of Franchise's Weekly Training feature.

A few years ago, EA changed the Weekly Training feature in Franchise and removed the Skill Trainer. Now you choose very broad, vague concepts to practice, such as "defend inside run", or "throw the ball deep", instead of more specific concepts based on an individual team's scheme. Ironically, this new Weekly Training menu gives a more detailed scouting report of opponent tendencies, that would have worked better with the old training mode using the Skill Trainer. It actually shows which concepts the opponent runs most in different situations, which would have helped the user choose which Skill Trainer drills to run. Now, we have this extra information, but no Skill Trainer drills; and the more vague practice categories don't relate directly to the tendencies listed in the new scouting report.

But before I get started, I want to take a moment to acknowledge that EA has actually partially addressed some of the issues that I've discussed in a previous installment of this essay series. Specifically, Madden 24, Madden 25, and College Football 25 have substantially improved player logic in loose-ball situations. Since I published the 5th essay, about loose-ball situations, EA has added a number of new animations of players diving or falling onto fumbled footballs. This has mitigated some of the frustrations that I expressed in that essay. Scooping-and-scoring does not happen nearly as often, and players are now also able to recover their own fumbles.

There are still problems with fumbles and loose ball logic, so I won't be rescinding the entire essay. Many of the criticisms are still valid. Most notably, fumble recovery animations often appear pre-determined and break the laws of physics and human anatomy. Awareness during loose-ball situations is also still hit-or-miss.

Nevertheless, EA did actually improve this area of the game, and I want to acknowledge that. As I've said before, I don't make this content simply to shit all over Madden and EA for the sake of it. I make this content because I love football, I love football video games, and I want EA to give us a better product. All my criticism is intended as constructive criticism that I hope is taken in good faith by anyone who watches. As such, I always want to give credit where credit is due.

In any case, I previously started talking about off-field strategy and team-building. Now, I want to talk more about what to do with that talent once they have been scouted, drafted, and evaluated. Today I'll be talking about another one of Franchise Mode's most glaring high-level flaws. It's finally time to talk about how Madden handles (or fails to handle) gameplanning and preparation.

At a very high level, Madden focuses its game strategy almost exclusively on what you like to do! Not off of what the opponent likes to do, nor even off of what you team is built to do. This is not really representative of how real NFL teams prepare for games. In real football, teams do not generally take their entire playbook into any given game. They install, tweak, and practice a different subsets of specific plays each week, based on what they think will work best about their upcoming opponent.

However, modifying your playbook for a given opponent has just never been a part of Madden. This is especially frustrating, because the game has a mechanism for doing this. There is a Custom Playbook and Gameplanning editor that was introduced in Madden 11, and which is still in the game after all these years. While Madden games from over a decade ago did encourage users to use this feature to customize your play-calling to your personal preferences, newer games have pushed this feature more and more into the background, in favor of EA pushing updates to the pre-set playbooks, based on the play calls from real-life teams as the real-life NFL season progresses.

This seems good on paper. Why wouldn't we want realistic playbooks based on the plays that real coaches are calling this season? Don't we want those plays and play-calling frequencies to change to more closely reflect how those coaches call plays in real life? After all, that more closely reflects how the real NFL season is unfolding, right? Sure. Those are great things for Play Now pick-up games and Ultimate Team matchups against randos. But it's not exactly ideal for playing in a simulation Franchise Mode, in which the user is ostensibly taking on the role of a head coach or general manager over the course of multiple seasons, and in which coaching decisions should be based on the events and situations within the Franchise Mode, and not on how things are happening in real-life. And that is where Madden's Franchise Mode falters.

Madden 11 introduced a gameplan editor along with its playbook editor 15 years ago.

I'm going to change pace a little bit for this installment of "How Madden Fails To Simulate Football". Previously, I've focused on the rules of the game and on on-field gameplay. This time, I'm going to go off the field and start talking about team-building and coaching strategies, which are key to creating an engaging Franchise Mode experience.

This is a topic that was voted upon by my Patrons. If you would like to have voting power to influence the content that I create, then I encourage you to support my content creation through Patreon. Patron support helps offsets the cost of the server for my blog, the license for the software that I use to YouTube edit videos, and any research material that I buy.

The COVID years have been hard on a lot of people, and many of my Patrons had to discontinue their support due to financial hardships. I want to take a moment to wish all my former Patrons the best. I hope that 2022 treated you better, and that 2023 will be better yet. I'd also like to thank my current Patrons and those who stuck with me. To all my Patrons -- past, present, and future -- thank you for your support.

Now let's talk football! I'm writing drafted this essay in the month or 2 leading up to the 2023 NFL Draft, so this topic will actually be kind of relevant at the time that it is published.

One of the ways that Madden is most different from real life football is that in Madden, the exact skill level of every player in the league is known to everyone all the time. Because of the way that Madden implements player attributes and progression, users don't have to evaluate player talent at all. Ever. In the vast majority of cases, ordering your depth chart is a simple matter of sorting the players by their overall ratings. And if it's not the overall rating, then there's usually a single other attribute rating that determines who starts and who doesn't. It's usually speed. For example, I favor kick and punt returners with speed, and usually put my fastest reserve player as my starting returner, regardless of his overall rating. So yes, there are some edge cases where a user gets to make judgement calls about which player better fits your play style. But for the most part, it's all about that overall rating.

This means that there is no mystery or question about which players are actually good, which players aren't so good, and which players are outright busts. It also means that Madden doesn't have true position battles. One player is objectively better than the other in the vast, overwhelming majority of cases, even if it is just marginally so. It means there's no question whether a free agent or trade will be an upgrade over the players already on your roster. It means that there isn't much value in testing out rookies in the preseason because you already know exactly how good those players are, and whether they are deserving of a starting position or roster spot based on their overall rating.

All of the intrigue and "what ifs" that go into roster movements and decisions in NFL front offices are simply non-existent in Madden because so much of the game is based on these absolute numbers that are completely open and transparent to everybody.

photo credit: Pittsburgh Post Gazette

photo credit: John Jones / Icon Sportswire

Every year, there are questions about who is the best player in many teams' lineups.

Think of some of the big questions from early in the 2022 season: Is Mitch Trubisky better than the rookie Kenny Pickett? Should Devin Singletary get more carries than James Cook? How about Tony Pollard or Ezekiel Elliot? Should the Packers look to Allen Lazard or Sammy Watkins to replace the lost productivity of Devante Adams? Will Nakobe Dean play well enough as a rookie linebacker for the Eagles, or should they stick with their veteran starter from last year? Is Bailey Zappe better than Mac Jones? Is Trey Lance better than Jimmy Garoppolo?

Before I begin this essay, I would like to invite my readers to become supporters through Patreon and be able to vote in a poll to decide the next topic in this series. I have several broad outlines for topics, but no actual draft yet. So I'm asking my Patrons to decide which of those topics I should cover. The poll closes at the end of October, at which time, I expect to start work on the draft for the next topic.

I'd like to take this moment real quick to sincerely thank my current Patrons. Your support really helps, to by offsetting the maintenance of this site, and the cost of software licensing that I use to create content for this site and my YouTube channel.

I also want to provide a short disclaimer that the original video was posted before I had a chance to play any of Madden 23. I have since played several matches in Madden 23, and can confirm that none of the problems discussed in this video have been fixed or addressed. In fact, issues with fumbled footballs teleporting into the hands of the recovering player seem to have gotten worse in the newer game. In just a handful of matches, I've already seen multiple examples of the football teleporting through the bodies of prone players and into the hand of a recovering player who is a full yard or two away from the football. It's bad.

Anyway, onto the actual topic!

The previous topic was about Longsnapping, and included proposals for adding both ratings-based and skill-based botched snaps into the game. Botching a snap might lead to a bad kick, or a kick being blocked, or the snap sailing over the head of the holder or punter for a fumble. But even though I want botched snaps to be represented in the game, there is one caveat. One of the biggest and most long-standing A.I. and animation problems with Madden is its lose-ball scenarios, and putting bad snaps into the game might not be a good idea unless Tiburon and EA also address this long-standing problem.

But hey, Madden already has muffed punt returns, onside kicks, strip sacks, and just regular old fumbles in the game already, so once again I ask: why are all these other things in the game, but botched snaps are a bridge too far?

Anyway, some of the issues with the pass rush that I mentioned in the Pass Rush essay would also be alleviated by better loose-ball logic. The excessive strip sacks of Madden 17 and Madden 21 might not have been such a big problem if the players were smarter about recovering their own fumbles, and if scooping and scoring weren't so easy for defenders. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's now look at how Madden fails to model fumbles, fumble recoveries, onside kicks, and other loose-ball situations.

Photo credit: Sports Illustraded

Adding botched snaps to the game would exacerbate existing issues with fumbles and fumble recoveries.

I don't think I've ever played a football game that feels like it truly nails special teams play. Madden has been especially bad at this phase of football for a very long time, and has largely neglected it year-in and year-out. Every now and then, a release comes out that focuses on special teams, but the upgrade is never as comprehensive as it should be. I was considering making a video about all of special teams, but that's too big a topic to tackle in a single video, so I decided that it would be best to make shorter videos that each focus on specific aspects of special teams play.

While drafting the script for my previous video about pass blocking and pass rushing, I had started thinking about issues with blocking and rushing in special teams, and thought I'd do a video about one specific specialist position that has been a personal crusade of mine for quite a few years now. I'll surely discuss more of Madden's special teams failings in future videos. But for today, I want to talk about how Madden completely fails to do justice to an oft-overlooked and under-appreciated specialist position: the longsnapper.

I'm looking at this specific position for two reasons:

1. I played on special teams in high school and worked alongside our longsnapper. He spent extra time before and after practices honing that skill.
2. And the 2nd reason I'm covering this topic is: unlike other highly specialized positions like holder and kickoff coverage gunners, Madden actually includes Longsnappers as a position in the depth chart, but has never included any mechanics or rules that actually make the longsnapper a meaningful position on your team, or which differentiate who is a good longsnapper versus who is not.

As for my high school teammates on special teams: there were several of us who never would have seen playing time if not for our special teams duties. Instead of resigning ourselves to a life on the bench, as some other reserves had done, we carved out niches for ourselves, so that we could see more playing time. We worked hard to earn our positions, and the coaches noticed the hard work (especially if it was extra-curricular in nature), and they rewarded us with extra rotational reps on both offense and defense in relief of tired starters. My experience has lead me to respect special teamers, probably much more than most football fans.

Some of us reserve players would have never seen playing time if not for our specialist roles.

A Knee-Jerk Reaction

I remember proposing a "Longsnapping" rating on a YouTube comment or Madden forum like 6 or 7 years ago, and received absolutely vitriolic responses that largely boiled down to "having the outcome of a game decided by a random fluke like a botched snap would be horrible game design." It's a sentiment that does makes a certain degree of sense. Determining the outcome of a match by a die roll does seem like it would be bad video game design -- at least, outside of digital craps.

But hold on a minute. Is it really bad game design...?

Running backs have a rating that determines their likeliness to fumble. Quarterbacks have several ratings that determine the accuracy of passes. Receivers have several ratings that determine their likelihood to catch a pass. Linemen have ratings that determine if they whif on a block. Defenders have ratings that determine the likelihood of missing tackles. DBs have ratings that determine whether they blow a coverage. Kickers have ratings that determine if they miss a kick. Every player has ratings that determine if they get injured on any given play. All of these ratings can affect the outcome of a play or an entire game based on a random die roll. Heck, even coaches have ratings that determine how much players develop in the offseason or how likely free agents are to sign a contract. Ratings semi-randomly deciding the outcomes of games or entire seasons is apparently OK for literally every other position both on and off the field, but somehow having a rating that determines if a snap or special teams hold is botched is a bridge too far?!

Nobody complains about other positions having ratings that can randomly decide a game.

To be fair to the critics: if you're playing a 5 or 6-minute quarter pick-up game online or in Ultimate Team, and each team is only getting between 3 and 5 possessions the entire game, it does make sense that you wouldn't want your one and only attempt at a punt or field goal to go awry because of a fluke like a botched snap. In such a shortened game, it would swing the game wildly in one direction or the other, with little-to-no time or opportunity for a team to overcome such an unfortunate outcome. (I keep saying, every installment in this series is probably going to refer back to that first essay about quarter length.)