When you start a new Franchise in a Madden NFL game, you get 2 options:

• Use preseason rosters,
• Use current active roster.

For simulation users looking to start a new Franchise in the preseason, neither of these options is ideal. The preseason roster gives you all of the preseason players, but it does not include ratings changes, updates to player likenesses, or roster changes that occurred during or after preseason. The current roster, on the other hand, is up-to-date, but only includes each team's active 53-man roster. Practice squad players are all independent free agents.

If you choose the active roster, then every team will start the preseason with only 53 players, and CPU teams don't bother to fill their rosters during the preseason. This wreaks havoc with preseason play, since CPU teams will go into preseason with only 2 quarterbacks, or only 3 running backs, and so forth. So when it comes time to sub in all the backups in the 2nd half, things potentially break down, since the rosters aren't really deep enough to facilitate pulling out all the starters.

So I have taken it upon myself to try to partly resolve this problem. I have uploaded a shared roster file that restores most practice squad players onto every team's rosters. I went through every team, and added all of their practice squad players to their rosters. I used the rosters from ESPN, going into week 2, and looked for every practice squad player in Madden's free agent pool, and added them back to their team's roster. This included any currently inactive players who were listed on each team's injured reserve.

I have manually restored many practice squad players onto their team's roster.

This roster will allow sim Franchise players to use a roster that maintains major roster transactions that occurred during or after preseason (such as Micah Parsons being traded from the Cowboys to the Packers), as well as any ratings updates that EA applied after the preseason, while still giving all the teams some of their practice squad players back. These extra players can play in the preseason, and can be added to teams' practice squads after the preseason.

This roster is called "PLUSPRACTICESQ", and it is currently available on Madden 26's in-game roster share menu. I created this roster on PS5, so I'm not sure if it's available for XBox or PC players to download. Does EA have "cross-play" for file sharing? If you're playing on XBox or PC, and cannot find or download this file, then don't get mad at me; direct your anger towards EA.

The Chicago Bears have seen a turnaround the past few weeks. The Bears started the regular season 1-2, and looked like they might be repeating the same disastrous mistakes that they made with both Mitch Trubisky and Justin Fields. I have not liked Matt Eberflus or his coaching staff these past couple years, and I was hoping that the Bears would look for a new head coach. I feared that when the Bears drafted Caleb Williams, they had drafted a potentially elite quarterback in the last gasp of a lame duck year for the coaching staff. I feared that coaching staff would stunt Williams' development with poor coaching and play-calling. Williams did not look very impressive in the preseason (the backups sure did, though), and he struggled the first few weeks behind awful pass protection, an un-reliable rushing game, and play-calling that failed to put him in situations in which he could succeed and build confidence.

Those days feel like ancient history though. The Bears have now won 3 straight, going into their bye week. Not only are they winning, but they are winning decisively, and looking like a well-rounded powerhouse. Williams is in the top 15 in both passing yards and passing TD. The offense is scoring over 30 points per game in its wins, and the defense is giving up an average of less than 17 points per game. At the same time, they have scores on special teams, and rookie punter Tory Taylor is looking like an instant all-pro.

Photo credit: total apex sports.

Punter Tory Taylor is making life very easy for the defense.

Things seem to be on track.

But "seem" might be the operative word there. I still have concerns.

Those 3 wins came against some of the worst teams in the NFL this year. All 4 of the teams the Bears beat have 1 win each through 6 weeks. In fact, the only 1-win teams that the Bears haven't beat yet are the Patriots and Browns (thought the Bears will have a shot at the Patriots next month). The Texans are the only good team that the Bears have played so far, and they lost a frustrating match against a mediocre Colts team. The good news is that the Bears were at least competitive in those 2 losses, losing both games by a single score.

In any case, the Bears have shown that they can beat up on bad teams, but they have yet to show that they can truly win against Playoff-caliber teams. And that's worrisome, because all of the NFC North is looking like potential playoff teams this year! They will get a chance to prove themselves after their bye, when they will go on the road to play the NFC East-leading Washington Commanders. Then they will have a couple more cupcake games against the Cardinals and Patriots, before starting a brutal gauntlet of a schedule that includes all of their NFC North divisional games, as well as road matchups against the 49ers and a home game against the Seahawks. The Vikings (in particular) are one of the surprise success stories of the league so far, as they remain unbeaten through 6 weeks (5 wins because they already had their bye).

The Bears could very well go into divisional play with a record of 6-3 (or even 7-2), but they will need to at least split those divisional games, and win at least 1 of the non-divisional games against the 49ers or Seahawks, if they want a shot at a wildcard playoff berth. And honestly, I'm not yet convinced that they can do that.

Well, I don't know how the Bears are going to play during the regular season, or if they'll make the playoffs, but it kinda felt like they won the 2024 preseason. The Bears went 4-0 in the preseason, and absolutely dominated all 4 teams they played, including both the Buffalo Bills and the defending NFL champion Chiefs.

The defense was particularly stifling. Watching these preseason games almost looked like watching the '85 Bears' playoff run. Opposing teams simply could not move the ball, and the Bears dominated field position and time of possession.

Unfortunately, going undefeated in the preseason has been a bit of an albatross for NFL teams throughout history. The 2008 Lions and 2017 Browns both went winless in the regular season after having won all 4 of their preseason games. More generally, since 2010, teams that won all their preseason games would not do well in the regular season. Most would have losing records when all was said and done.

On the flipside, no team in this century has won the SuperBowl after failing to win a single preseason game. This does not bode well for the defending champion Chiefs, who lost all their preseason games, including the one against the Bears.

Something that doesn't help the analysis of the Bears' perfect preseason is the fact that the performance of the starters was lukewarm at best. It was really the backups who lit things up. It's hard to judge the Bears' top 2 draft picks because they didn't see a ton of action. Caleb Williams had a few good plays and showed a lot of the improvisational excitement that he was known for at USC. But all those theatrics did not result in many points, as the Bears' starting unit was mostly stagnating in the red zone and kicking field goals.

Rome Odunze almost had a touchdown against the Bengals, if only he'd stayed in-bounds.

There could have been a highlight touchdown between these 2, if Odunze had kept his feet in-bounds for a catch at the back of the endzone after a Caleb William's scramble. In Rome's defense, the sidelines and back lines were not fully painted. Usually, the lines around the perimeter of a football field are thick, solid white lines that are several yards wide. But in the preseason, these lines were hollow, so Rome may have thought he was inside the endzone because he was looking at the exterior line, instead of the interior line. In the regular season, he will hopefully be more aware of where he is on the field.

The performance of the Bears' offense in 2023's preseason has softened a lot of my hope and excitement about the upcoming season. I was hoping for a major turn around, and for the Bears to be playoff contenders in a relatively weak NFC North. But now, I'm not so sure. I doubt we'll see a completely pathetic flop of a season like last year, in which the Bears earned the number 1 overall draft pick. But I now see a winning season as more of a stretch.

Put simply, the Bears' offense showed a lot of explosive promise in its 3 preseason games, but it didn't really show a lot of general competence. Justin Fields went 3 of 3 for 129 yards and 2 TDs in the preseason opener, with TD passes to DJ Moore and Khalil Herbert. But both of those touchdowns (and the vast majority of those yards) came from Moore and Herbert breaking screen passes behind the line, and running halfway across the field for scores. It was all Moore and Herbert; not Fields. All in all, a lot of the rest of the Bears' preseason play showed a lot of the same struggles that we saw last year.

Protection didn't last very long, and Fields had to run on multiple occasions, and also took a few hits. Neither the run game, nor the pass game, looked particularly efficient, and the first team offense saw multiple 3-and-outs. But worst of all, the injury bug has already taken a toll. Both guards, Teven Jenkins and rookie Darnell Wright, missed games with injuries. Jenkins has already shown himself to be injury-prone, and now it looks like Wright might have problems with injuries as well. Both players are being evaluated on a day-by-day or week-to-week basis, so it's possible they will both be ready for the regular season opener in 2 weeks. But even if they are healthy in the opener, how long with that health last?

Dante Pettis, the presumptive punt returner, has also already been placed on injured reserve. So it looks like Velus Jones and/or rookie Tyler Scott will be competing for that job. Jones didn't play much in the preseason due to his own injury, and Scott got plenty of reps at returning punts. He didn't have much of an opportunity to show what he can do in that role, however, since few (if any) of the punts he fielded were returnable. But the important thing is that he held onto the ball. He did have a big kick return in the final preseason game against the Bills, in which a shoe-string trip-up from the kicker was the only thing that kept him out of the endzone. Another sign of potential explosiveness.

Photo credit: Charles REx Arbogast, AP

D.J. Moore and others showed explosive potential in the preseason.

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?