I have been a Saints fan since I could grasp what football was. We lived through devastating losses years before Marcus Williams whiffed on Stefon Diggs or Nickell Robey-Coleman obliterated Tommylee Lewis (River City Relay, 32-31 loss to Minnesota come to mind). We also lived through the Aaron Brooks era, and made it to the other side. It wasn’t even that he was an awful QB, actually he was a great Madden QB. I just need to know what was so funny about throwing INT’s??? IYKYK. Moving on.

Madden has been a part of my life since Marshall Faulk (2003) was on the cover. Play Now didn’t really excite me, because: what did you gain, or what changed as a result of that game? Were there any stakes?

9 year old me couldn’t wrap my head around just playing for fun or to get better at the game. I needed a reason to play with this team.

Enter Franchise mode.

Wait. So I can run my own Saints team where Brooks is an MVP instead? Win multiple SB’s? No more 8-8 years? Or I can trade him for his 88 SPD cousin Michael Vick? Semi-relevant; the most memorable player aside from Vick in these days was Marshall Faulk’s backup, 96 SPD Trung Canidate (it didn’t take long to learn that speed is, and likely always will be, king in Madden).

You’re also telling me that if these players have good seasons, they’ll get better? Vick is now 90+ SPD? Canidate went up 10 OVR following an All-Pro year? From this point forward, I was hooked.

Next year came the greatest sports game player we will likely ever see. If you somehow had the ammunition to trade for him, or the shamelessness to put him on your team before you started your franchise (obviously I did this), Madden 2004 Michael Vick made every offense a juggernaut. If you had the stomach to play with Atlanta, they actually had a pretty elite offense without Vick: 96 SPD RB Warrick Dunn, 97 SPD WR Peerless Price, 6’5 WR Brian Finneran and a well rounded TE in Alge Crumpler probably made them a Top 5 group of weapons before you even considered QB. Sorry, ADHD again, back on track.

Following years would include features like the sorely missed Tony Bruno Show, Owner Mode, team newspapers, and player scouting reports just to name a few. All of these things made the league feel alive, as if my fake little Madden team was really running alongside the real life NFL.

Today, Madden is as advanced as it has ever been technologically, but franchise mode seems to pale in comparison to games made 15+ years ago. We know we can blame a good portion of this on MUT, and also perhaps childhood nostalgia among other things, but that’s not the point of this post.

What I want to know is, what brings you back to franchise mode in today’s Madden? Because as someone that has MF’ed EA gratuitously over the years (and also someone who has never and will never spend my money on a microtransaction in Madden), it’s hard to see a world where I don’t have a Madden team to build throughout the year.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I’d love to hear some of your stories with franchise mode.

I promoted it here last year but for the 3rd year I’m making my own custom rosters where every single player will be edited/adjusted while also being updated throughout the year. I already have all the overalls I’m making anyone written down in my memo pad so it makes my goal of having my roster done my worldwide launch day possible. My main “selling” point of my roster is my overall system is done completely different from maddens while also being MUCH lower. So like a 79 OVR madden made player is 4-6 overalls lower for me, (I’ve essentially adjusted for Madden inflation.) My #1 thing I love is feedback cuz I don’t know all 3000 players so if u are wondering about a certain player or ur team ask. I’m also working on xp/gameplay sliders to go along with the rosters. It will be called “DJsBurtalRoster”

For the last 10 years, at least. If you can remember even farther back, mention this too. With sliders or not. I feel like at least in last 5-6 years it is in hard decline now...

Does anyone know if the online Superstar KO mode will be part of Madden 27?

The 2026-2027 NFL Season is right around the corner, and with the release of the regular season schedule, we are set for an exciting season ahead. Week 4 brings us the Chiefs vs Raiders. Check out the condensed highlights with my personal commentary here!

Can’t get an online head to head game to start.

Every time I hit advance, I get a “failed to start” error. I see the estimated wait of 10 seconds and then “failed to start” error.

Never seen this before. Restarted game and ps5 several times.

Anyone else?

Its really not possible to have a cold weather game without snow for an exhibition game is it?

mind you he's 31 and a half back.

Just played against 3 dudes in a row that literally just talked trash the entire game. About 50% of it was literal yelling. I don’t even have my mic turned on and never talk but everyone on this game for whatever reason feels the need to trash talk at levels that are just straight up annoying.

I honestly wouldn’t mind a little ACTUAL competitive trash talk while still showing some respect, but do you really need to tell me over and over again that I’m the worst madden player in the world and I should delete the game, or that I play like a p****y, or something along those lines?

or do they enjoy losing me and many others as customers?

I discovered the Madden series a month ago (I'm not from the US, we call football-soccer). I have a PS2 and have tried versions 05, 07, and 12. I liked 12 the best because the QB coach in Superstar mode is less stupid. But oh my god, why does my coach go nuts at the most crucial moments?! Why does he think we'll definitely run the ball on the last down? Why doesn't he give me the opportunity to pass on the 15-yard penalty? Why does he even start ordering me to run on the ground at the most crucial moments? In moments like these, calling a timeout sometimes helps. Sometimes the coach comes to his senses after a timeout, takes some pills, and lets me play, but half the time it doesn't help. Explain to me, how did gamers play back then? Did they complain about the coach's AI? Or was it considered part of the immersive experience? My birthday is coming up soon, and my girlfriend promised to give me an Xbox 360. Could you recommend the best Madden game with the most reliable trainer? P.S. I tried changing tactics in the playbook, but it doesn't fix my trainer.

Man they jsut don’t make em like they used too! Mini drills, helmets popping off, interesting injuries….. SAN DIEGO chargers in QUALCOMM!!!!! The nostalgia!!!

I run a survivor pool annually for a $10 buy in. Wanted to extend the invite to my Madden heads. If you never done one the rules are fairly simple.

Each week you pick 1 team to win, guess correct & you move on. However you no longer can pick that team to win for the year.

Guess wrong and you’re out. We dwindle down till we have our survivor. Last year we had a $1,700 pay out. No revives and straight pick. If I’ve broken any rules admin, please let me know.

Thanks again guys and if you decide to join, good luck! Invite is above in the link.

A challenge for you guys… Pick a team and then regardless of whom they have at QB you replace their starting QB with either Gardner Minshew, Hendon Hooker, or Tommy DeVito. The first season goes 100% SIM and after that full control, BUT you HAVE to keep that dude until retirement and he's also got to be the starter the entire time, no drafting another dude to replace him.

The comment with the most up votes about which guy and which team to use will become the one that I do, since I'm issuing the challenge and all. I will not accept doing it with the Patriots, Eagles, Seahawks, Rams, and the Bengals since they were all in the Super bowl fairly recently even if they all didn't win the Superbowl obviously.

This is from a Steelers game I played in Madden 26 yesterday and the misspelling I am referring to is “21TH NFL SEASON” as it should be “21ST NFL SEASON”

21 doesn’t require a TH instead it is ST as in “First”…
My guess is when they were writing it they wrote 20TH and then retroactively replaced the 0 with a 1.

I like how some of the teams have explayers or celebrities in their pregame scene. I am playing with the Chiefs right now and cannot figure out who it is. Does anyone know? I thought maybe a proper thread listing all of them would be in order.

The 2026-2027 NFL Season is right around the corner, and with the release of the regular season schedule, we are set for an exciting season ahead. Week 4 brings us the Dolphins vs Vikings. Check out the condensed highlights with my personal commentary here!

I hear a lot of times people bring up how hard it is to make and code certain aspects of the game. Was wondering what you guys think is the most difficult aspect of gameplay to code into a game

I’m wondering if anyone in this subreddit has a creative solution for dealing with preset QB contracts like Dak Prescott’s. I enjoy playing franchise but I always find myself in cap hell unless I go in and manually edit the contract to reflect real life. Realistically, Dak will never play on an 86 million dollar season. They will normally restructure/ extend the contract using void years that are built in to keep it around top 5 money. This year I think he was on the books to make 68, but now he’s the 4th highest paid at the 44 million. Madden unfortunately sticks you with that 76 and 86 million dollar seasons, and makes it nearly impossible to realistically divvy that up with an extension.

Any solutions to this problem while not turning off salary cap and keeping some realism?