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MVP
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Re: How do you put your teams together?
Of course it always depends on the franchise, recently I've been playing a Cardinals franchise (by now they have become the Alaska White Knights, nothing like playing in an open stadium in Anchorage where you can have snow games in mid-October...), but judging from my experience, I always work down the same list of priorites
1. Quarterback. Obviously, there's nothing more important in Madden as in reality. When I'm playing the Jets, I don't care about that, I'm set for the next 10 years or so. When I'm playing the Pats, well, I will scout QBs looking for a late-round gem to pick up and groom beside him, but I wouldn't draft anything higher than the 4th round or so as long as Brady is fit and still years away from retirement. When I'm playing the Cards, well, I'm ****ed. I usually start Skelton and tank the first season picking up the best QB I can get my hands on in my first draft, this time, I found Chandler Milhollin, the "white Mike Vick" with Speed 91, in the 4th round.
2. Halfback. I'm a firm believer in "who runs the ball well controls the game", in what I consider a "perfect drive", I have 14 plays, 8 of them called runs, 3 passes and 3 QB scrambles, and take almost a whole quarter to finally punch it in, so obviously, HB is a position of huge importance. This is Madden, so speed kills, so usually, I don't even scout HBs who ran less then 4.35 on their 40, I want all my backs to have 94+ Speed, so while I love Beanie Wells as a power back and always keep him as a Spell HB, he'll never be my "feature back". Fortunately, HB is one of the easiest position to draft, almost every second draft class has some late-round gem who sticks out like a pink flamingo in a goth club with his skill hex almost off the scale in the midst of all those D- or F-potential busts. With my White Knights, I picked up Shaydon Favors, a Speed 99 A potential back who starts out with 85 OVR and after 2-3 years will be second to only AP, if that.
3. Cornerback. In the run game, if your DE misses a tackle, well, there's a LB behind him to make it, and if he breaks that, your safety gets him. Yeah, it sucks to give him a 10 yard gain and a first down, but you will have another chance to stop him. If my corner blows up on a post, I've just given up 20, 30 yards. If he's too slow to keep up with their deep threat, I may well give up a 70 yard TD just like that. CBs are the most important defensive position for me, and unfortunately, the hardest to draft, because you can't scout for any of those abilities I'd like my corners to have other than speed (MCV, ZCV, PCV) so what I do is scout for the guys I like (again, 94+ Speed is a must with only a fex exceptions for very talented players) and then look at their skill hex, usually you can pick out the good ones. For my Cards, well, Rodgers-Cromartie is actually my favourite CB in Madden, with his Speed no receiver will ever outrun him deep (usually, this is Madden, sometimes, even the best players will screw up) and with his insane Catch rating, he's a turnover machine. I usually try to draft one CB each year until I have 4 CBs I really like, having some poor 65 OVR 84 SPD backup as your dime back is not an option in this day and age with some teams going 3 or 4 wide basically all game.
4. Linebackers. While CB is the most important position on defense, linebackers come a close second for me. As always, I want speed out of all my players, so I don't scout LBs who don't run at least a 4.4-ish 40 to get guys with at least around 85 Speed, other than that, Tackle is the only attribute I really look for, if a guy is fast and can tackle, he's my guy. Usually, the guys who have both high will have decent Block Shedding and Hit Power anyway, and with that much Speed and Tackle on the field, it's just so much easier to stop the run and try to get after the QB (I like to run a 3-4 defense so I pretty much always have some LB in on the rush), since I almost always control a LB when playing defense, I take care to get at least 2 guys I really like as soon as possible.
5. Oline. Yes, many seem to think that Oline ratings don't matter, but I disagree. Do they matter as they should? No. But still, I good line makes running the ball definitely easier, I've tried that often enough and it holds true every time. While Levi was my LT with the Cardinals, I don't think I've had more than a handful of succesfull runs to the left. When I drafted some stud tackle after two years, my yards gained on the laft rose drastically. Scouting Oline as a bit of a mixed bag, because while you usually take only two weeks to get the two ratings that matter (Run/Pass Block) unfortunately, those ratings really don't matter, because Run/Pass Block only affects sim games, when you actually play them, it's the Block Strength/Footwork ratings which you can't scout. On the other hand, picking out the "hidden gems" on Oline is very, very easy, just scroll down the list and watch out for when the skill hex suddenly pops out and you got your guy.
6. Receivers. I include TEs in this section because I don't care what your position is, I need guys for my QB to throw to. Since I don't really put much emphasis on the pass as I said, this as a bit lower on the list of priorities, usually I try to give my QB a good WR and a good TE and after that, I just wait whether any late-round gems turn up in the draft. With the Cardinals, I already had Fitzgerald so no need to do anything dramatic to pick up new WRs, I drafted a great receiving TE in my first draft and other than that, just picked up a late-round receiver every year, if he was any good, I kept him, if not, well, it's not like I'll be crying myself to sleep for wasting a 5th round pick.
Other than that, I just pick it as I go. I'm quite content to see what the late rounds of the draft have to offer for Dline and Safety, since Dline ratings don't seem to matter too much on All-Madden anyway, I scout kickers and punters each year until I find one with Kick Power 97+ and then keep him. While I love running out if the I, I hardly ever draft FBs. You can usually pick up a good, cheap FB in Free Agency (just look for high Impact Block, really the only thing that matters for a lead blocker), and even better than that, since no CPU team carries more than one FB, you can usually pick up an A potential rookie FB as an UDFA right after the draft because the team that drafted him didn't sign him so you can get him without wasting a pick on him.
Of course that's not a strict list to be adhered to step by step, but it's just the level of priorities I assign to the different positions.
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05-24-2011, 04:27 PM
