Rebuilding the Off-season

[DeuceDouglas]

This is going to be all over the place and lengthy but I just want to go into something that I feel like should be expanded upon and that's player contracts. Obviously, it'd be great if contracts we're to the dot exact in Madden but with so many factors involved, I don't know if that will ever be possible. What I'll try to do is "Maddenize" them with how they could potentially work within the game and making them intricate yet still straightforward enough to not make them cumbersome.

The three main factors I want to focus on are base salary, guaranteed money, and bonuses/incentives.

Base Salary - The main thing here is options. Currently, every players contract just escalates year over year with the early years being the cheapest and the late years being the most expensive. Allow the user to choose from options like escalating (back loaded), de-escalating (front loaded) , flucuating, and static. Like I said before, the key things is options. Things like this are realistic and allow you to manuever around the cap a little bit easier.

Guaranteed Money - The biggest thing when it comes to contracts these days. You don't ever pay attention to the total number but the guaranteed number. The idea here being that the user can choose how much guaranteed money a player receives and it isn't necessarily limited to the bonus. Basically, when negoatiating, you'd have the year-by-year contract laid out in front of the user and you could choose whether or not you wanted to make a players base salary for a certain year or years be guaranteed to increase the amount of guaranteed money in the contract in addition to the bonus. This would obviously take some sort of player negotiation trait that dictates what the player values most whether it be money, winning, playing, etc.

Bonuses - This is where things could get really interesting. There's a lot of potential for this in negotiating but it would have to come with other things obviously. If the offseason were laid out as I have it here, you could offer players workout bonuses as well as roster bonuses that they were to receive if they meet those credentials. This is something that could increase the potential value of the contract but not necessarily be guaranteed money. Keep the traditional signing bonus in as it stands. I won't get into incentive bonuses just because I think the only way to do them would be have them be team oriented rather than player just because of the potential issues within an online CFM it could cause. All of this is hypothetical at this point but I'm just looking at things as if the off-season were handled this way or in a similar fashion.

Basically how I would imagine things would change is that players would come into an off-season with some sort of number of years, total money, and guaranteed money in mind and it would be the users responsibility to negotiate around that or simply let the player go.

Other things that I won't get into but I think are needed to go along with this are some sort of player happiness a la MVP Baseball as well as some sort of player personality traits that factor in whether a player is looking for more money, more playing time, a winning team, etc. Improved player contract demands. What I mean by that is that pretty much every player that isn't on the downside of his career should be looking to make more money than his previous contract. Maybe not every single player but for the most part, if you've got two guys that aren't far apart in ratings, they should generally be looking for the same amount. If you have something like that you could even throw in situations where a guy who doesn't care as much about money may be willing to take a pay cut if needed in the off-season. Same goes for QB's. We've seen that in today's NFL, you don't have to be a top-level QB to get that monster contract. I'd like to see more factors taken into account so that there are off-seasons where you really have to struggle to keep your guys and make moves so that it makes your good players that you're able to keep feel like commodities.

I realized this isn't fleshed out at all, I'm just throwing ideas out there. Hopefully this will be something that gets some much needed attention but we'll find out in the coming weeks. As far as things to improve in CFM I would definitely say this is lower on the totem pole but it's still something that needs work, thus it being brought up. Things like this would just make CFM feel more alive than it currently does.

[Ueauvan]

penultimate draft comment was Jimmy Ward?

i want to be able to make up my draft board, and position needs i nominate not that the game comes up with

[Grey_Osprey]

Hopefully Looman and Co. come through with a lot of fix's/changes to CFM and the offseason. I just fired up Madden 25 for the first time in a couple weeks, downloaded new rosters, and started a Jags franchise....but I didn't use 32 team control (big mistake). Now I'm thinking about scraping it and starting over ..... with 32 team control to prevent this from happening.

After year one, here are a few of the players that were not resigned by their teams. And made it through FA without being signed! I get that sometimes teams have to let players go for cap reasons, but for them to go unsigned during FA? What a major fail. SMH

QB - Cam Newton 99, Colin Kapernick 92, Josh Freeman 84, Jake Locker 84
Ryan Mallet 81

RB - Vereen 91, Gore 87 (he is 31), Murray 84

FB - Sherman 94

WR - Dez Bryant 99, J Nelson 95, J. Jones 95, B Marshall 95, D Thomas 94
T Smith 92, J Maclin 92

TE - J Thomas 92, Finley 86 (currently out anyway), F Davis 86

LT - Solder 94, Smith 92

LG - Lupati 91

C - Pouncey 91

RT - Smith 85

DT - D Suh 96, Harrison 87, Knighton 87, Fairly 86, Raji 85

RE - Hughes 95, Avril 91

LOLB - Houston 95, Wright 87,

MLB - Spikes 94, and a 90

ROLB - Erakpo 92, Bishop 88

CB - Peterson 97, Flowers 93, a 93, and a 88

[bucknup]

Holy **** those are some kickass ideas. When you make a football game let me know!!!

Quote: Originally Posted by DeuceDouglas

I recently went through the off-season of Madden 25 in my 32-team franchise and I really enjoyed doing it, although it was quite the process, but it really got me to thinking about some ways that Madden needs to improve the off-season to become much better than what is currently in place. I didn't realize this was going to be so long when I began writing it so I apologize for that but I believe there is a lot of stuff here that would greatly improve the enjoyment and quality of going through the off-season. Anyways, if you make it through it all, let me know your thoughts and other ideas on ways to improve the off-season. With any of the pictures you see below, just give them a click and it will open the full size of each one. Free Agency Pretty much everything here is stuff that should be essential but is just not included or avoided for whatever reason. Restricted Free Agents - This is a necessity, plain and simple. No explanation needed. No reason why this isn't or shouldn't be part of the off-season. Waivers - Applicable players who get released should have to go through the waivers process. I still look at the preseason as very much the offseason so it fits here as well as during the regular season. Just this last preseason, the Chiefs claimed 7 guys off waivers after final cuts. They were first in line due to being the worst team the year before. When Kyle Williams got cut during the regular season by the 49ers, the Chiefs put in a claim on him and were awarded him because no other team put a claim in on him. It's a very simple process that could be simply added to the actions part of your given week every time an eligible player is released. You hear it ALL the time when it comes to players getting cut mid-season and during the preseason that these players have to go through waivers before they truly become a free agent. Compensatory Picks - This is something that may be a bit more difficult but, again, something that should be a necessary part of the off-season. The process of dispersing picks doesn't necessarily have to be perfect, just somewhat logical. This is an entire round of the draft that we miss out on as well as the possible bit of strategy that goes into letting players walk versus signing new players in free agency. Restructuring Contracts - This is something we have seen a ton of already this off-season. Best way to do it would be to simply have a player have a yes-no option on whether or not he is willing to restructure. If not, you may be forced to cut/trade him as we've seen with DeMarcus Ware and Darrelle Revis. Front/Back Loaded Contracts - This is something that was in Madden before and I have no clue why they took it out. It's something that allows you to be a little more versatile depending on your cap situation and should certainly be brought back. Player/Team Options- Allow for player/team options to be negotiated in contracts. Allows for more creativity in negotiating contracts as well as additional management duties if a player opts out or if you feel the need to opt out of a contract of a under-performing player. Transition Tag - The transition tag it a less expensive alternative to the franchise tag. The difference is that other teams can sign the player to an offer sheet as if they were an unrestricted free agent, but the original team has seven days to match. And unlike the franchise tag, if the player signs with another team, his original team receives no compensation. Scheme Knowledge - I think that every player shouldn't be limited to one specific scheme, but should have some sort of knowledge rating whether it's a bar, letter grade, number, or whatever. This would apply to mainly to free agency as well as trades possibly. Basically, each player would be able to potentially fit multiple schemes and also have a variable of which schemes he fit/knew better. This would be something that both the player and teams would have to consider in free agency. Do they really want to bring a guy in that does not fit the scheme at all and try to make him fit in a square peg, round hole type of scenario? Or do they go for the safer choice who is less talented but has a greater knowledge or fit to their specific scheme? Also, does the player turn down extra money and a winning team to go to a scheme he is more familiar with (i.e. Red Bryant, Chris Clemons)? Playbook Knowledge - This goes along with the scheme knowledge above. Basically, each player has a knowledge rating of each playbook in the game. The way I figure it would work is that they have a knowledge tied to each given play/route/run/block/etc. so that if they go from one playbook to another that has a lot of the same or similar plays, they're not completely out of the blue. This would affect not only free agents but also rookies greatly. Ideally, you would have position coaches as well as coordinators that affect how quickly your younger guys get acclimated/pick up the playbook and so forth. This is something that would not only directly affect the management side but would also contribute to potential changes in gameplay based on how much knowledge a player has of his teams given scheme/playbook. It would also greatly prevent or hinder the ability to just sign any players off the street and plug them in with no penalty at all. As well as putting you in a situation where you will kind of have to deal with rookie growing pains and things along those lines. The Draft IMO, the way the draft is handled needs a complete overhaul. From scouting to presentation, it all has to change. It doesn't necessarily need a complete rebuild, just a different direction using some of the things that already currently have in place. Scouting - This has been one of the more difficult things to deal with and it seems like the process is changing every other year. I like the idea of the letter grades. I don't really like the idea of just throwing points at a guy and knowing his exact attributes though. This also brings up the issue of having to scout things like speed, player type, strength, and other attributes that would be common knowledge to virtually everybody in the NFL. The idea I have for this is implementing guys like Mel Kiper, Todd McShay, Mike Mayock, and other so-called draft experts into the mix of the scouting process. The season would start with each of them having their big board which would be like a mock first-round with their top 32 or maybe even top 50 players. In addition, they would each have their own additional letter grades for important attributes connected to that players position. This would be something that would be dynamic throughout the season and would play extremely well with the storyline and twitter feed aspects of CCM. No NFL teams are contacting Kiper, McShay, or Mayock for draft suggestions but this would be something a bit more cosmetic and would benefit the presentation of the draft (which I'll get to later) more than anything else as well as giving you additional data to ponder on prospects. In addition to this, you would also have a staff of scouts. I haven't really thought this side of it all the way through but my initial thought was that you would have something along the lines of a head/national scout(s) and regional scouts. The national scout(s) would give you letter grades on virtually every player in the draft but they might be a little bit more vague (my thinking was strictly letter grades, no + or -), while the regional scouts give you a bit more detailed scouting but they are only limited to the players in that scouts designated region. These scouts would have ratings or attributes that would determine how close or accurate the player ratings were to the scouting grades they returned to you. So while you may have a great scout in one region bringing you very accurate grades, another region might suffer or conflict with what your other scouts are bringing back to you. Combine & Pro Days - Two things completely ignored currently throughout the scouting process. This needs to be an offseason stage that offers nothing but simple, raw data. 40 times, bench reps, vertical height, hand size, height, weight, so on and so on. Again, this should just be raw data that you would get from the combine. A couple official 40 times and everything else you could possibly think of. One of the more difficult things to deal with would be the position specific drills. I think I would simply have a grade on these drills that ranked from 'Very Poor' to 'Outstanding' and have that grade come from the draft gurus as well as your head scout and even head coach. Same could be done for the 60 interviews allotted to teams where you get a grade based on whether your coach came away impressed, discouraged, indifferent, and so on from the interview. A wrinkle that could be added into this as well is having certain players not participate in certain drills and thus, not giving you any data for that category for the combine. Which brings me to pro days. Have an additional stage of the off-season for the Pro Days where once again, you get more raw data in addition to everything else you've previously acquired. So for a player that participated in all the combine drills and pro days you'll have something along the lines of four 40-times along with all the other data. This also allows for players who "weren't invited" to the combine to have raw data attributed to them. It also allows you to have an abundance of diverse information on virtually every prospect in the draft while maintaining a decent piece of mystery behind each prospect. Draft Projections - This is where the gurus come in again. Get rid of the round-pick specific draft projections and broaden them out. 1st, 1st-2nd, Top 5-Late 1st, that sort of thing. Also, have these draft projections be unique to Kiper, McShay, Mayock, etc. So maybe a QB is projected to be a Top 5-Top 20 for Kiper, but McShay sees the player as a Late 1st-Late 2nd. This continues to add to the intrigue of each individual player. In addition to this, allow the user to create their own team big board where we can essentially put the players in order from who the user thinks are the best prospects to the worst based on scheme, attributes, or whatever the user deems most valuable. Presentation - This is probably one of my biggest issues with the draft. It's just so bland and boring. All you really have to do is sit there and look at your draft board and maybe wait for Trey Wingo to pop on. There's a lot of ways to quickly and, IMO, drastically improve the draft process from an entertainment standpoint. The storylines IMO opinion need to go. If they were more integrated into the CCM then I might be on board with them but the moment Adam Schefter stops talking they have zero relevance from that point on. I know the word generic scares a lot of people but I would honestly be fine with generic voice overs from Mel Kiper or McShay or Mayock for each prospect. It doesn't have to be anything elaborate, I don't really care about the players backstory or his recent college escapades. I'd be fine with a quick, two-three line description that is relevant to the player drafted. And I know a lot of people really want something along the lines of the player walking up and shaking hands with the commish but, personally, I'd be completely okay with hearing that classic draft chime when a selection is in, and then a cut to something like this along with the quick description from Kiper, McShay, etc. This way you've got some sort of constant action and banter and it helps you get closer to resembling the real draft. You could even throw in lines while the clock is running where Wingo asks what somebody thinks this team will be looking for and then have Kiper, McShay, etc. say this team is probably looking for and then list some of that teams needs. The last thing is to change the look of the draft while drafting. There needs to be the ticker along the bottom showing all the previous picks and upcoming teams on the board. Adding another bar with thigns like Kiper's best available, team needs, upcoming picks for each team, and all the stuff you see on a ESPN or NFL Network broadcast are essential to creating the illusion that you're actually participating in a real NFL draft. Ideally, you'd have something similar to this here with your draft board and other vital information taking place of the TV crew in the middle. You could also throw in things like cheers and boos (like they used to have) for picks that you see every year at the actual draft, they don't have to have any meaning whatsoever, just be cosmetic and add to the presentation. Custom Draft Classes - This is something that needs to be implemented immediately. Especially considering the fact that it took so long to get NCAA Import back in and now NCAA is gone. Like I said before, I'd honestly just prefer that they trashed the storylines and just had the newsfeed talk about some of the top prospects and then add depth to the draft commentary. The one thing about custom/editable draft classes is that if I'm playing a offline CCM with just myself, I still want there to be some mystery there. There needs to be some sort of way to randomize certain pieces of info so that you can't pinpoint the exact players you created in your draft class and just target them. Obviously, this would be an option as the vast majority would like to be able to pinpoint the players they created as well as not have issues with such things as creating authentic NCAA draft classes. This also gives the user the ability to correct the flaws in the base EA generated draft classes. No more wide receivers, corners, and running backs with 60's for speed. No more classes where entire positions are gone with a couple of rounds to go. This is something that would give the user a great amount of creativity and control in their CCM.

[DeuceDouglas]

Quote: Originally Posted by Grey_Osprey

Hopefully Looman and Co. come through with a lot of fix's/changes to CFM and the offseason. I just fired up Madden 25 for the first time in a couple weeks, downloaded new rosters, and started a Jags franchise....but I didn't use 32 team control (big mistake). Now I'm thinking about scraping it and starting over ..... with 32 team control to prevent this from happening.

Yeah, 32-team is definitely the way to go. I was doing it last year and it was really fun but time consuming and I got to the point where I just wanted to play games and so I took off the controls of the other 31 teams and all hell broke loose. Within a week there were just a ton of free agent signings that for the most part were just simply upgrades to guys with higher overalls. Overall, there shouldn't be too many moves or movement during the season.

But yeah, I definitely hope there is improved logic on teams doing as much as they can to keep their top level players, especially QB's.

[DeuceDouglas]

Quote: Originally Posted by Ueauvan

penultimate draft comment was Jimmy Ward? i want to be able to make up my draft board, and position needs i nominate not that the game comes up with

I believe it was indeed Jimmy Ward.

And I'd be all for being able to make up your own draft board. That's something I've mentioned before and would just be something that the User would be able to choose to do in addition to the others or just simply rely on the others if they so choose. More options the better.

[DeuceDouglas]

This is more just a general thing but it's something that would add to the draft as well as possibly free agency and that is a revamped injury system. Probably will be a lengthy post so if that's not your type of thing, skip to the pictures and you should get the basic idea.

The basic idea being that the overall injury rating is tweaked and spread out among body parts and areas which would include the head/neck, shoulders, elbows, hands, back, knees, and ankles. The idea being each area would have a injury and durability rating. The durability rating would have no affect in play now games and would be something strictly tied to CFM and would be something that could degrade over the years depending on factors like workload, injury history, etc. The injury rating would determine the likelihood of the player suffering an injury to that specific portion of the body. Obviously, there are times where it doesn't matter what your injury or how durable anything is, freak things happen and players get injured and that would definitely be something that would have to be accounted for.

The basic gist is to try and make injury history and injury prone players, as well as health, factor more into the CFM world. You've got guys like Percy Harvin and Darren McFadden who just can't seem to stay on the field at all while you've got iron men like Joe Thomas and D'Brickashaw Ferguson who play every game.

This would have to come with some sort of enhanced injury system as well. Otherwise guys like Harvin and McFadden would just constantly be going down with broken legs and dislocated hips. Those types of injuries should be more rare and fall more into the freak type things. Guys with lower durability and injuring ratings should be more susceptible to nagging injuries and injuries in things like training camp and practice. Pulls, strains, sprains, that type of thing. And the toughness rating should dictate how they handle those type of injuries. Maybe Big Ben can play with a severely sprained ankle while a guy like Jay Cutler is out for two weeks. I'd like to see that kind of variation between players to force you to make decisions on players where it's like, "Damn, every season this guy is missing 3/4th's of the season with injuries", and you have to decide whether it's worth it.

Also with the durability rating you could see the big drop offs you see in real life, mainly with the running backs. Guys carry that big workload and just break down from it. Or maybe it's a situation like Steve Breaston where he just has bad knee's and at some point just disappears from football completely because nobody feels it's worth it to sign him. Or where a rookie comes in with a ton of talent but medical issues keep his career from ever taking off.

I'll get into the draft part now to try to break up the wall of text with some pictures! Basically, with each prospect after the combine you would get a medical report back on the player with their injury history and ratings. What you see below is just a couple mock ups of what a potential draft prospect would look like in-game. One is a guy with an extensive injury history and is very injury prone while the second is a guy that is pretty much the exact opposite. Now, with anything, it doesn't mean that Player A will or has to get injured and that Player B won't or can't get injured either just that the likelihood for one is greater and thus less of a risk. This could cause some interesting moments as it would force a decision upon maybe choosing a guy with less talent but is more reliable than a guy with more talent but is always injured.



You could even go a step further with this and have medical staffs that you hire that may have certain traits to them. Maybe an excellent training staff returns very accurate ratings while a not so excellent ones vary more. Another step in that could be hiring a Strength & Conditioning coach and having that have a minimal affect on certain aspects of a players durability and what not. Even further than that could require a physical when you sign and draft players and maybe these medical staffs have more or less strict requirements for what represents a passed physical depending on which one you have.

Anyways, just spit-balling ideas. Obviously as with anything else this isn't the most perfect or realistic representation of something like this but I think it is something that would make CFM more intriguing and more importantly add more life to it which is the main thing that is trying to be accomplished.

[adam3313]

simplest way to fix the offseason for me...

take the offseason system from NFL Head Coach 09 and add it into Madden. Problem solved.