Franchise Mode (it is what it is)...How's yours going?

[Instant C1a55ic]

Quote: Originally Posted by K_rob11

My expectations are pretty low for this thread but here goes nothing....... I know most of you have given up on Madden 09, but I am still chugging along and quite honestly enjoying my franchise. Yes, I recognize all the flaws in this years title and understand why many of you think franchise mode is very boring and unplayable. But I decided to play my franchise out and I am having fun doing so. Just wondering if I am the only one left here at OS STILL playing their franchise in Madden 09 dispite all of the issues and "boringness"... To Recap Year 1, I snuck into the playoffs with a 9-7 record when Indy (9-7 as well) lost its final game of the season. I happen to beat Indy twice so we held the tie breaker. So their loss to Tennessee in the final week gave us the South division. Had they won that game, I would not have made the playoffs. We beat the Browns in the Wild Card round. Trailing 13 points in the 4th quarter and no running game to speak of, David Garrard pretty much put the team on his shoulders and willed us back into the game. He drove us down the field and we scored the wining TD with 10 seconds left to play. We win 29-28. Next up, we head to Foxboro to face the Pats in the divisional round....and it was snowing hard (I loved it!). It really kinda pumped me up to play in the snow (this was my first franchise game ever in the snow). I was expecting this to be a tough game but to my suprise, New England did not bring their "A" game. My gameplan, shut down Randy Moss! We shaded him and double teamed him the ENTIRE GAME. Still, Cassel insisted on getting the ball to Randy. The result, 6 INTs for my secondary. We also sacked him 5 times. Garrard was brilliant in this game as well, throwing 3 TDs and over 300 yds passing. It was his best game all season long. We blow out the pats 40-3. Here is where I messed up in that game however.....late in the forth (with about 4 minutes left to play) I don't even think about taking out Garrard...i mean it never even crossed my mind. While trying to run for a 1st down, Garrard gets popped and he is out with an injury. Now, this is a little fun thing I do, but I always skip the injury cutscene and wait to check it later. I only check my injuries at either Halftime or after the game...it builds up the suspense when I don't see him returning to the game ....and he did not return. I check it after the game and it says he had a concussion and he will be out for a week. OUCH! So I am headed to the AFC championship game to face the Chargers and I am not feeling so confident with Cleo Lemon.....we get blown out 31-10. The Chargers were the eventual Super Bowl champs over the Eagles in Season 1. McNabb was the league MVP. (can't remember any other awards off the top of my head). In the off-season...... I am just going to list some notable moves i remember off the top of my head..... - The Lions had the first pick in the draft and selected QB Matt Stafford (I thought that was cool..even tho there were alot of questionable draft picks as I expected...but glad to see the Lions select a QB like Stafford with the 1st pick).........btw, Tebow did not come out this year, so he will be in next years draft. -Knoshawn Moreno went to Seattle (yuck!) good pick, but i was hoping he would land somewhere else..... -Percy Harvin was selected by the Titans (mentioning this because this guy has already burnt me twice in Season 2) -WR Patrick Turner was drafted by Houston...they now all of the sudden have a scary offense with Slaton, Andre, and Turner ...should make the AFC south interesting. - I decided not to resign Mike Peterson and he went on and inked a deal with our rival, Tennessee Alot of old big names retired after season 1 (Farve, Warner, Isaac Bruce etc...)

Awesome stuff. I just started a chise with the browns and things have gotten off to a pretty good start. Started Brady Quinn right from the start, and i gotta say he is a pretty decent QB if you ask me. He finished with 3,009 pass yards, 19td 11ints. Jamal Lewis rushed for 1,298 and 7 tds. Funny thing is, if you watched the Denver game, one of the commentators mentioned how much more action Kellen Winslow will get with Brady at the helm. Well after year one, winslow had 698 yards recieving with 9tds, with braylon edwards with 978 and stallworth with a horrible 457 and 12 dropped passes .

Got Mike Peterson, along with Rueben Brown,Cooper Carlisle(sp?), matt prater and Ed Johnson in FA so i can run a 4-3 (dont know what they ran before hand as i sim through year 1) I fired Crennel cause after finishing 6-10 and the Defense coach since we were last in passing and 28th in rushing. signed Brian Billick as Head Coach and tony dungy (was a legit sign as he didnt have a job, even had to fight the colts lol) as my defense coach.

Drafted the WR i created as myself in NCAA with the 11th overall pick, and i turned out to be a 85 overall. With the rest of my picks, i drafted a CB in the 2nd and 4rd, a TE in the 3rd for my two TE sets that i LOVE to PA boot leg out of, a LB in the 4th, C in the 5th and i traded my 6th and 7th to move up to get my CB with the 1st pick in the 2nd round.

After i got all my rookies signed, i feel like i cheated since i went into my FA list and singed Jason Taylor since he is there after every first season. After getting Taylor i am pretty much down to a little under $3 million in cap space and i boosted my Offense from a 82 to an 89 ovr and by D from a 79 to a 84 OVR. I traded a 2nd, 3rd, and 5th round pick to the Broncos for ryan clady, boss bailey and 4th round pick.

i played my first game with my browns soon after and crushed 49ers 41-17, a real RARE high scoring game. Quinn threw for 277 and 3 tds, Lewis ran for 112 yds and 2 tds and matt prater was 2/2 in FG's hitting a 55 and 43 yarder.

Thats about it for now, sorry i didnt have the full details. I just threw together what i could remember. I did sign a few other players, i just cant remember and i dont want to fire up my 360 again as i just finished about 6 hours of Fable 2 . If anyone is remotely interested, ill post a little bit more later. Till then GO BRONCOS!

[outlawz1979]

see yall making the most of it..

[Danimal]

I gave up on my franchise, but I finally found a way to enjoy this game and a franchise. I set the quarter length to 6 minutes so I didn't get to bored and I am playing a game of the week.

I selected a team for use control but then set everything under coaching to CPU and instead of playing their game each week I select a game of the week to play. I also let Maqdden call all the plays. I have some rules as it not selecting the same team twice, only so many audibles per half etc but it is keeping the game enjoyable for me. I think most of my boredom came from using the same team, I see other teams able to do things my franchise team never did.

I've also grabbed a video or two from each game I play so if I decided to I can do some kind of end of the year wrap up with highlights.

[TheBest]

Good job K Rob. I will post mines once I get actually get the game. I'm going to start one with the Broncos. I couldn't get with 08's franchise mode but hopefully I can get with 09's. We shall see. I know how to enjoy games for what they are so I think I can handle it.

[phillycannon1720]

My Franchise is obviously with the Birds. I'm in my 2nd year at the helm. Last yr wasn't that good, went 10-6 and snuck into the play-offs because of a bad Giants yr. Went on a run and barely won the Super Bowl, I know what you're thinking and no I am not lying or cheating. I won because of my Defense. 2009 going better currently at 11-4 but dropped my last two one of which against a bad Giants team (6-9). I wrapped up the division already but I have a meeting against Washington who is at 8-7 and fighting for the playoffs. It's the last weekend of the season and them and Dallas are going at it for the wildcard. I might spoil their chances lol. I'll update it as I do more

[ajstach]

I will start one with the Broncos, even though I am a Bills fan. I had one with the Bills going, but there is no way I can remember all the things I did with the team like the both of you have. So this way I start fresh with a decent, but not great team. I was going to do one with the Chiefs last night, but my power went out so it didn't get saved. I'll sim season 1 after adding free agents as I see fit. I will try to not go too overboard and keep it to a realistic minimum. I also plan on taking control of a poor franchise and relocating them and rebuilding them. Any suggestions as to who and where they should go? More to come later.

[AdamVinatieri4xsbchamp]

I played my franchise with the Raiders and went 13-3 and pretty handily won the Super Bowl on my skill sliders. I was wanting to see what kind of career stats I could get for McFadden but I just gave up on it because it was too easy.

[phillycannon1720]

Update:The Birds made the play-offs at 12-4 and did not ruin the Redskins chances at a play-off berth, they got in as a wildcard and won their first-rounf game. Now they gotta play me at the Linc. I pretty much destroyed them in the last game of the season. They finished 8-8, so did the Cowboys but the Boys aint make it in. Westbrook had a stellar year amassing over 1000 yards and 20 tds. McNabb didn't have a great yr but still made the Pro Bowl though. Sheldon Brown made it so did Dawkins for the 2nd straight year. My rookie WR Brian Robiske from the Ohio State University had a stellar year also and was in the running for ROY. Peyton Manning had MVP of course, Brady was second place. Westbrook was also in the running for it.Stewart Bradley my outside linebacker also made the Pro Bowl for all of his ints (6), which is a lot for a linebacker in one year. One game he had 2, he's going to be a stud for years to come. Updates to come as I progress through the playoffs