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Some of my wishes...is gonna be long grab a snack
(this is the first of a series of posts on this issue)First off let me say that I am a football fanatic. I love every aspect of the game, from knowing when to sub in a role-player to managing a salary cap, to making a leaping catch in the back of the end-zone. I have owned every Madden game since its inception. Some I enjoyed more than others, some less. However, there are some things that I have been wanting to see in a true simulation of what really goes on in the NFL to see if I could make the grade as an NFL owner, GM, scout, accountant, head coach, coordinator, field general, deep threat, blitzer, and center-field playing safety.
-First off, I want an option to start the game at the beginning of the off-season, before player retirement, so that I can redo what my favorite team has screwed up, again.
-Instead of having all these extra teams (Tiburon) and stadiums that no one ever uses, let’s free that space up for other useful stuff.
-I want a sports ticker at the bottom of the screen at all times to let me know news going on in the game, whether trades, signings/releases, scores, or league leaders, similar to ESPN or NFL network.
-Get rid of the radio show and bring in Rich Eisen from Total Access. Let player interviews go away and show us highlights from games, and give news on current player movements.
-Biggest mini game of them all, FANTASY FOOTBALL. Let us play fantasy football against a few CPU players.
Owner Mode Off-season
-I want position coaches, for each of the major positions: qb, rb, wr/te, ol, dl, lb, and db.
-I want to be able to create a coach in the same way that I can create a player.
-Offensive and defensive systems should be affected by the type of coaches that I hire. If the defensive coordinator is a 3-4 mind, running a 4-3 defense will affect how my players respond on the field and how they grow as players.
-I should never be able to have Parcels as a head coach, Bilicheck DCoor, and Martz OCoor, let the older more established guys only be a head coach or sit out the year.
-Gimme some money to start out, owners, while spending a lot on a team, still have the money to make some moves when they first start out.
-Let changing coaches often affect a team’s prestige negatively and changing systems with different coaches lower the awareness of certain positions for the first year or first few games.
-Let early termination of coaches contracts affect where coaches want to go based on team prestige also.
-Allow a coach to be moved from NCAA to Madden and back. Coordinators defect all the time for head positions, i.e. Pete Carrol, Norm Chow.
-Allow me to budget profits back into the team, with options for increased scouting slots, off-season workout funding, or even charities to build prestige.
-Division, conference, and super bowl champion banners need to be added to stadiums and updated throughout franchise mode, would be a good additional screenshot during a timeout or at the beginning of a game.
Retired Players
-Give me the ability to talk my players out of retirement.
-Let players stay on as position coaches.
-Give us a Hall of Fame, bringing prestige for a team that has an inductee, and let me retire numbers. Give team specific honors, such as the Cowboys Ring of Honor.
-Allow me to see retired players career stats for the position that they played, i.e. running back would show only rushing and receiving stats, not passing on their hb pass plays.
-Show a career record of stats with the top 5 all time and top 5 active in each stat.
-Let players with a heart (will discuss later) rating that is high stay in the league longer than one with a low rating.
-I am not saying that career ending injuries do not happen, but last season I lost 2 starting linebackers and a running back that were all under the age of 25 and over 90 injury rating.
Restricted Free Agents
-Give me a little message that I do not have the right picks to sign someone else’s player, so that I don’t bang my head on the wall figuring out why I can’t get the ‘X’ button to work.
Re-sign Players
-The ability to change the amount of money offered needs to be sped up. Or, allow the left analog stick to change an individual denomination, i.e. instead of going from 1.03M to 1.04M, let me go to 2.03M by moving the cursor with the stick to the left, then pressing up.
-I want the franchise tag to still list the player as a FA, but I have first refusal and losing him will get me 2 1st round picks.
-I want the transition tag also.
-I want players that want to start to leave my team if I cannot give that opportunity to them. That was really left off of the player interest screen.
-Holdouts should not be paid to hold out and should have a chance to come back before the season starts or within a few games. That does not mean that they always will, but those who do will be almost impossible to resign when their contract expires.
-Players that are released from contracts at this time will have the signing bonus proration accelerated to the current year’s cap penalty.
NFL Europe
-Allow me to send players to NFLE to improve. Many current stars have gotten the kick in the pants that they needed there. Young qbs developing a lot of times just need game reps to get going.
-This should also give me extra roster slots heading into training camp.
-Chance of season ending injury should also be present.
Free Agent Signing must be before the draft!!!!!
-The ability to change the amount of money offered needs to be sped up. Or, allow the left analog stick to change an individual denomination, i.e. instead of going from 1.03M to 1.04M, let me go to 2.03M by moving the cursor with the stick to the left, then pressing up.
-System players need to show for that player so that I can see if the best qb is a west coast qb and will work in my system immediately or will have to learn over time. Peyton is a great qb, but would he excel in a west coast immediately? Does Breese have the arm strength to be in the greatest show on turf?
-Once released it should be near impossible to resign a quality player to the same team.
-Older veterans released to FA should normally try to pursue a team that is on the cusp to “get their ring” if they have never gotten one, i.e. Shannon Sharp.
-Players under 70 rating should not garnish more than league minimum.
-Non-guaranteed contracts to players that are signed after week one.
-I should be able to target 5-7 players before the “timer” goes off to start the next day. Don’t make it a time issue, make it a number of offers issue.
-Players signed under systems that they are not accustomed to will have an initial hit to awareness. Players will not normally want to sign with unfamiliar systems.
-Name player agents, and let them represent personnel with their own flair. Some will want incentives, others guaranteed money, others longer deals.
Trades
-Let me trade future draft picks.
-Let me trade more than three slots at a time.
-Let there be 3 teams involved in a trade.
-Let coaches be traded.
-Let money be traded.
-Let the #1 overall pick in the draft be worth what it is, last one traded was worth 2 1st, a 3rd, and a 5th, and that was only dropping 3 places to the #4 pick.
-Many releases ago, the CPU would actually offer trades to the human player, giving us the ability to accept or deny. I miss that.
-When I try to trade for Peyton Manning he is worth A++ rating, when I try to trade Peyton to another team, he is A to A+. That needs work. Players are ranked the same regardless.
Off-season Workouts
-Let me pick attributes that will be worked on by an entire position in the priority that they will be applied.
-Let me tell an OL that I want him to gain/lose 20lbs before training camp. His discipline rating (later) will decide how well he responds.
Draft Scouting
-I want in season scouting. I will upload from NCAA the current seniors and on weeks 5, 9, 13, and 17 and they will be analyzed. Those will no NCAA will be auto filled in the same current manor.
-I want more information. I want comments from college coach on a player, medical, discipline issues, system played in, team record, player awards, ect. Comments should be given to me by my scouting team at least 2-3 every time scouted.
-I want to be able to hire an independent firm to scout for me, giving me basic information about the player way in advance of others so that I can know who the players are.
-Newspapers need to have a college page to update and hype the big named college players.
-NFL, while completely different than college, still needs to maintain more integrity integrating the ability scores from NCAA. Many times a player with a 99 speed in college comes in with an 89 in the NFL. They don’t slow down that bad.
-The NFL combine, as a rule, should only represent a vague measuring stick of abilities. Players that run a slow 40 are not necessarily slow, but may have an off day. However players that run a 4.3 should never be slow.
-Players need to stop having multiple 4.16 40’s. In this years combine, the fastest run was a 4.3 flat.
-Bring in the wonderlick test.
-Let me scout more than 15 players at a time. There are 7 picks in the draft, up to 10. I want scouting to be based upon team money management.
-Once the players are uploaded from NCAA, make a couple of teams out of them and let me play the senior bowl with them, that way they can impress me by what they can and cannot do on the field.
-I want over 300 players for the draft, to enable rookie free agents.
-Don’t let me manually change the height and weight of a player (will be discussed later).
-Scrambling quarterbacks should be able to try out as a receiver as well as a qb, especially all of those that have horrid accuracy.
-Allow an “Athletes” category similar to NCAA for those that are tweeners. QB’s play safety, WR, and qb in the NFL. WR can play CB or maybe tight end if he is big enough.
-Linebackers can play fullback, show more ability than bktackle, some guys can block also.
NFL Draft
-The top 10 picks should have the player come up to the stage to receive his jersey.
-CPU teams need a major AI upgrade to drafting for team need. I had 8 qbs and 9 rbs go in the first round of my last draft.
-Don’t boo me if I have a great team and am drafting for need and depth. I don’t need a qb in the first round if I have Peyton and traded for Eli as a backup.
-Give me comments from my coordinators, kinda like trying to convince me to their side on who to draft on each pick.
-If a player that is drafted is not signed, he should go back into the pool for next year’s draft.
-Draft grades, in my experience have only been A+ to A. Add a little more diversity, like down to an F.
-Instead of just having a “scouted” category, let the scouted part be under the position header. It would be like how on fantasy draft, you can switch from available to drafted, except from available to scouted.
-I want the draft to stop between rounds so that I can have a second to see what is going on, like it does on the fantasy draft.
-Give me a scouting report, grading the CPU positions, to give me an idea if they might draft a certain position. Make a current starter with 92+ to be A, 86-91 B, 78-85 C, 70-78 D, and under <70 F. No depth should be figured in also.
Rookie Free Agents
-Let me sign rookie free agents to my team to swell my roster to 75 players plus roster exemptions that I get for NFLE participants.
Mini Camps
-Let there be a rookie camp, to immediately improve rookies’ attributes.
-Let there be 2 veteran camps to improve veteran attr., or to allow a player that is not used to a system to learn it.
-Mini camps should only improve a little bit of one attr.
-Do similar drills as in NCAA to couple with current Madden drills. No gold, silver, bronze…just completion with rookie=1 point, veteran=2, all-pro=3, and madden=4.
-A player that competes in a mini camp cannot compete in training camp or another mini camp, so that all players have a chance to improve a little.
-Not completing the next level will not make you lose points.
-Points should only be allowed to be placed in skills as physical skills are dealt with in the off-season workouts.
Free Agency Second Wave
-Players released now will count half of the prorated signing bonus towards the current year’s cap penalty, and the other half to the next year’s cap.
Signing Draft Picks
-Should happen after the second wave of FA due to them not having to be signed until right before training camp.
-Only the top eight picks really cash in. After that, the rest of the draft does not rate 30M dollar contracts.
-Name player agents, and let them represent personnel with their own flair. Some will want incentives, others guaranteed money, others longer deals.
Training Camp
-Have all of the drills just like for the mini camps, but also add an inter-squad scrimmage.
-That way all players have the opportunity to improve a little based upon that game and the little that they received during the drills.
-Almost all players should be able to get something out of the camps this way.
-If a player does poorly on a drill, as in not completing rookie level, they should lose a point.
-Injuries can happen in all camps and drills and the scrimmage.
-Points should only be allowed to be placed in skills as physical skills are dealt with in the off-season workouts.
Preseason Games
-Trim rosters from week to week to the necessary amount of players.
-Let me set if I want to go 50/50 from starters to back-ups, or 25/25/50 from starter, back-ups, 3rd string for better player evaluation.
-Play preseason games at different locations than normal, to include London, Tokyo, and Mexico City. (this would replace the cheesy stadiums in game now, could also only be used as a reward for some mini game completions)
-Hall of Fame Game with inductee ceremony.
-Position battles need to go away. I am never gonna play a sub par player over a better one because he had better stats against second team offenses and defenses.
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Linear Mode
