Which Ratings Matter in Madden 25?

[IXI DECAY IXI]

So I have been away from Madden for a couple years and I know a lot has changed when it comes to ratings.

In my days of playing Madden, you just threw the best overall guy in there and played. I now have read where it seems OVR is not really that important...

My main question is which ratings really matter for each position and which ones should I focus on in my online league. I just took over an 0-9 78 rated Texans team, so I have a lot of work to do and could really use some help.

Thanks!

[Patsnation34]

Awareness means a lot, Especially to defensive backs! Play Recognition for Linebackers and safeties too!

[preaceps]

It kind of matters how you normally play, or how you want your team to play, on offense and defense.

Offense.

I generally like to have speed, speed, and more speed.

AWARENESS IS ALL POSITIONS

WR's Catch, Catch in traffic, and spectacular catch are obviously important. I hold a lot of value in high Speed and Acceleration. I like to have that guy that can push past the press coverage and hit them before they get safety help.

RB's Speed, Acceleration, and agility for me. Obviously if you hit spin/juke a lot then you need to have that high to sync with your play style.

TE I go more receiver than blocker here. With my high speed/acc RB I hopefully dont need TE to hold a block for a long time. Just mostly chip blocks. So basically see WR, although STR and CIT are more highly valued here than WR

OL I like to have balanced, though acceleration for guards on pull plays is kinda nice, not a deal breaker. Impact block, strength, run block, pass block matter.

QB I dont really pay much attention to deep accuracy here. I try not to throw deep unless its single coverage and he has a step, or I know has speed/acc edge and they even. Don't throw before he gets the release though. If you move around a lot then throw on run can matter to you a lot. I'm mostly a pocket passer, so Throw power, throw accuracy, short accuracy, and medium accuracy.

FB I go almost full blocking duties. Impact blocking, run blocking, pass blocking, strength. I also like to have decent speed/acceleration around mid 80s if i can. Otherwise you can easily outrun your FB if he doesnt immediately have a guy to engage.

Defense

Again, I go with a hell of a lot of speed. I will take speed over tackling, on the swarm defense idea. Also here is where you want to choose 3-4 or 4-3 obviously.

AWARENESS AND PLAY RECOGNITION IS ALL POSITIONS

DL 3-4 High STR, power moves, tackling These guys just take up space and need the tackling for getting their hands on the ball carrier if they are close.

DL 4-3 DT are STR, Power Moves, Finesse moves. Mostly pushing the pocket back. DE are Speed, Acceleration, power moves, strength. They need to get around the edge and collapse the pocket.

LB 3-4 Speed, acceleration, strength. 3-4 LB are all over the field. High tackling would be good but like i said, i run swarm defense. I want them to get there fast and hold them up. The HB might slip one tackler but #2-4 right after will get him.

LB 4-3 These are more coverage. Still need speed, acceleration, but need zone and man coverage. OLB can use press coverage, but kinda useless unless they have good STR. They would be pressing a TE.

CB I like speed, acceleration, pursuit. coverages are kinda cheep to develop but speed and acc are massive xp hogs. pursuit is easy to develop as well but again, swarm defense needs good pursuit angles.

S Speed, acceleration, pursuit, hit power, catching, strength. I use the hell outta my safeties. I have them all over and I really go out of my way to make sure I get good Safeties. If you dont have the acceleration here then 2 deep can get burned quite a lot. Also low strength and hit power leads to lots of catches over the middle that might be broken up with higher of these stats.

K/P pretty straight forward.

Again you have to kind of look into how you play/want to play. Don't worry about the OVR in game so much. Schemes and Player type can raise/lower a lot the OVR.

I would recommend a thread that was just started http://www.operationsports.com/forum...xperience.html .

Look at his value spreadsheet. Kinda gives you an idea what each position thrives on. He worked in his own formula to determine overall and it seemed kinda cool when I played with it.

Good luck

[IXI DECAY IXI]

I can't thank you enough man for taking the time to type this stuff up. Sounds to me like your play style is very similar to mine so I will definitely start rebuilding my teams

Thanks again!


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[nekolas]

It is hard to get a concise answer to this question OP, because it seems people feel very different about it. As with everyone, unless you make explicit research to prove it, it is all based on how you 'feel' when playing. Mine isn't much difference, I have just looked through the forum and comments from the developers, because when it comes to an online franchise, I am very competitive and want my team to be as efficient as possible.. Here is my response in bold to earlier comment:





Offense.

I generally like to have speed, speed, and more speed.
Speed is nice to have, but as long as it is not below "avg" you should be okay in M25. Used to focus a bit on speed before, but having used players like Browner (below 90spd), Lynch (90 spd?), Rice (below 90spd) and Wright (81 or so spd?), it seems to not matter too much

AWARENESS IS ALL POSITIONS
Awareness IS NOTHING! Haven't raised a single point in AWR in M25, and team is still beast, undefeated in online franchise. Though I am hawks, who arguably is the strongest team. That being said, I believe mr Czar Moore even publicly said in interview that awareness IS ONLY for CPU/simulation.

WR's Catch, Catch in traffic, and spectacular catch are obviously important. I hold a lot of value in high Speed and Acceleration. I like to have that guy that can push past the press coverage and hit them before they get safety help.
Definitely nice to have at least 1 guy with great speed/acc/release, who you can keep an eye out on for the streak route on cover2 or blitz 1on1. Spec catch I don't feel trigger too much, so I don't really spend points on it. Most important to me is Catch in traffic, then Catch/route running. Release only for #1-2 receiver

RB's Speed, Acceleration, and agility for me. Obviously if you hit spin/juke a lot then you need to have that high to sync with your play style.
I used to think like this guy, and I had CJ and JC in 2012/13. But Blocking has been "improved" and trucking too. Avg. about 8-10 yards per carry with Lynch, L2+right stick up.. So trucking is most important for me in M25, then carry. This is assuming at least about 90 spd/acc/agi.

TE I go more receiver than blocker here. With my high speed/acc RB I hopefully dont need TE to hold a block for a long time. Just mostly chip blocks. So basically see WR, although STR and CIT are more highly valued here than WR
To be honest, block ratings dont seem to matter too much, so I go all out receiver attributes too. Basically same concept as WR, minus release. Best if you can get one with some good phys ratings (85+)

OL I like to have balanced, though acceleration for guards on pull plays is kinda nice, not a deal breaker. Impact block, strength, run block, pass block matter.
My hole line is a bunch of FA's now in second season, so as to not spend contract money on a position as useless as the OL. Played with 3 of 5 of these guys as starters in first season, and I only focused on strength - which means they had below 80 in all other "important" OL ratings. Yet Lynch carried for second most yards, etc. Seriously, in M13 I wasn't sure if something like AWR was important at least for OL, but I am getting very skeptical by now. Strategy anyway is get 99 str on all OL, then take run block/impact to 85

QB I dont really pay much attention to deep accuracy here. I try not to throw deep unless its single coverage and he has a step, or I know has speed/acc edge and they even. Don't throw before he gets the release though. If you move around a lot then throw on run can matter to you a lot. I'm mostly a pocket passer, so Throw power, throw accuracy, short accuracy, and medium accuracy.
dont touch throw accuracy, only for CPU/sim. For QB just get all accuracies up, I usually go to at least 90. Throw power 99 if possible so that defenders have shortest time of closing the whole to the receiver. If you have a mobile QB, then get carry rating up, throw on the run. Play action if you use it

FB I go almost full blocking duties. Impact blocking, run blocking, pass blocking, strength. I also like to have decent speed/acceleration around mid 80s if i can. Otherwise you can easily outrun your FB if he doesnt immediately have a guy to engage.
Feels kind of useless. Can be good to use as a weapon, for example if he has decent speed then get good carry/trucking and use FB runs once in a while. Or if he has good catching (marcel reese), can be used in play action out of run formations

Defense

Again, I go with a hell of a lot of speed. I will take speed over tackling, on the swarm defense idea. Also here is where you want to choose 3-4 or 4-3 obviously.
agree on speed is useful, more so than offense since you have less "control" on defense. In my opinion 3-4 = zone/run stop, 4-3= man cov

AWARENESS AND PLAY RECOGNITION IS ALL POSITIONS Awareness I (still) disagree. Play rec though.. important! Would also like to add HIT POWER. 85+ HP on most of your defense will greatly up your chance of fumble turnovers. And they are not always that hard to get, except for CBs.

DL 3-4 High STR, power moves, tackling These guys just take up space and need the tackling for getting their hands on the ball carrier if they are close.
Tackling just gives your guy a better chance of the ball carrier not to get out of the contact. You should probably get block shedding instead

DL 4-3 DT are STR, Power Moves, Finesse moves. Mostly pushing the pocket back. DE are Speed, Acceleration, power moves, strength. They need to get around the edge and collapse the pocket.
I dont use my DTs as pass rushers, just doesn't seem to work much. Focus on run stop instead (block shed). For DE pass rushers it depends on whether they are speed or strength. Though the best DEs are a mix of high phys (both spd and str), and also fx powermoves

LB 3-4 Speed, acceleration, strength. 3-4 LB are all over the field. High tackling would be good but like i said, i run swarm defense. I want them to get there fast and hold them up. The HB might slip one tackler but #2-4 right after will get him.
again, tackling is about chance of taking the carrier down WHEN he is caught. I think you may be talking about PURSUIT. Important for the player to getting to the carrier

LB 4-3 These are more coverage. Still need speed, acceleration, but need zone and man coverage. OLB can use press coverage, but kinda useless unless they have good STR. They would be pressing a TE.
Man coverage is very expensive to up on LBs, so make sure that is the route you will want to go, especially since LBs can still lose out in spd/agi/acc when covering TE/WRs. Otherwise I like to make them kind of hybrid, all except for power/finesse move. Because I don't blitz much, and if I do, the rusher who gets in is usually not blocked anyway. But decent/good phys, block shed/pursuit/tackling to stop the run with minimum effort, zone cov so you can mix up your defensive calls. Not much for having man-cov LBs on receivers, so usually call formation with CB on TE, unless I go zone

CB I like speed, acceleration, pursuit. coverages are kinda cheep to develop but speed and acc are massive xp hogs. pursuit is easy to develop as well but again, swarm defense needs good pursuit angles.
Spd/acc/agi can be game changing here, making the difference of whether a player can suddenly close a gap and make a play on the ball. People don't think about it much but jumping helps too (also for LBs), where they can go up higher/earlier to make turnover plays. I see this sometimes where my guy playing press in cover 3 outside gets burned, but still manages to make the leap from behind on the ball. Man/zone of course important. But what many dont think about in M25 I think, is that pursuit and block shed is actually important. Offensively, blocking/the run game has been made "superior", and one way to fight this is actually to make your DBs effective against the run, in which they can easily shed a block by a WR and go in pursuit of the carrier if he tries to go outside

S Speed, acceleration, pursuit, hit power, catching, strength. I use the hell outta my safeties. I have them all over and I really go out of my way to make sure I get good Safeties. If you dont have the acceleration here then 2 deep can get burned quite a lot. Also low strength and hit power leads to lots of catches over the middle that might be broken up with higher of these stats.
Spd/acc/agi as always, nice to have. pre-M25 I would "insist" on at least 90 avg in those ratings, but Kam Chancellor has actually been quite impressive despite being at around 84-85 ratings. His 90+ hitpower has been amazing, and no wonder the upgrade cost is insane in the 90s, basically it is a rating you should try and make sure you have on the player when you get him, rather than developing it. Other important ones are zone coverage and pursuit, tackle should not be low either since safeties sometimes are your last line of defense

K/P pretty straight forward.
only go for kick power, at least if accuracy is already OK at 85+. I see almost no difference for accuracy, but kick power can allow you for consistent 55+ yard kicks

Again you have to kind of look into how you play/want to play. Don't worry about the OVR in game so much. Schemes and Player type can raise/lower a lot the OVR.
dont even look at OVR and schemes. It is almost cosmetic. If you really wanna know the OVR, look at the depth chart while INGAME (fx when in practice)

[yesokforums]

Don't throw before he gets the release though. If you move around a lot then throw on run can matter to you a lot. I'm mostly a pocket passer, so Throw power, throw accuracy, short accuracy, and medium accuracy.