Position knowledge
 

I think it could really add something to Madden's Franchise mode if there was some system to account for players knowledge of a position. It would have to be implemented with some sort of training mechanism to enable you to teach a player a new position, perhaps this would happen in the off-season, and choosing to teach a player a new position decreases that player's off-season progression slightly.

One aspect this would really help with is making the 4-3 to 3-4 transition actually meaningful - with this system your defences front seven progression would be reduced due to the time taken to learn the new system. I have produced a couple of mock-ups of an offensive player and defensive player, using the Football manager way of displaying the information, I'll upload these after posting this message.

Interested to hear everyone's thoughts on this.

Re: Position knowledge
 

Brad Smith:

http://img155.imageshack.us/i/bradsmith.jpg/

Darrelle Revis

http://img517.imageshack.us/i/darrellerevis.jpg/

One thing I forgot to mention - even if a player is listed as "ineffective" at a position, it doesn't mean they will be totally useless, just that they are inexperienced at playing that position and will suffer a rating hit, depending on how out of position they are. So James Harrison would suffer a much larger hit moving to QB than he would if he moved to a 4-3 end, for example.

Essentially if the mechanic is similar to the one in Football Manager, then I think it would really add something to franchise mode.

PS for two way players you could just use L2/R2 to switch between offensive and defensive views

Re: Position knowledge
 

I feel what you are saying but couldn't this be accomplished using player AWR that's currently in the game? We are constantly given so many reasons for things not be added to the game but I believe the game could be greatly enhanced just by them implementing some current features, differently.

For example, your 4-3 to 3-4 LB player knowledge idea, if they linked all players on-field AWR and OVR directly to individual plays in all playbooks, I think that would accomplish what you want. These ratings would increase, in these plays, the more players are used in them and even slightly for bench players (simulating the affect of them gaining limited knowledge from practicing in that teams system).

This simple adjustment to how things are currently done would add a great risk/reward effect to playing rookies or new free agents versus playing guys who are more familiar with your playbook.

Also, they should link the playbooks directly to the head coaches and not the teams. If a teams signs a head coach without a specific playbook, like a coordinator or former player being hired as head coach, randomly assign that head coach one of the generic playbooks ( West Coast, Balanced, etc). This would add risk/reward to changing head coaches and would encourage veteran head coaches on new teams to bring in players they have coached before, that are most familiar with their playbook. This could potentially add more depth to re-signings, free agent signings and trades if the displayed player OVR, during these actions, was affected by players on-field OVR in that coach's playbook. For example, Woodley might be an 88 OVR with Tomlin/Steelers 3-4, 80 OVR with Packers/McCarthy 3-4 and 72 OVR with Giants/Coughlin 4-3. (This is NOT representing the players actual on-field OVR in the coach's playbooks but just an OVR for player negotiations)

We all have ideas of new things that they could add but with all this talk of limited console RAM and company resources, I think the Madden community would be better served by requesting adjustments to things currently in the game.

Re: Position knowledge
 

While I've played lots of Football Manager and know this mechanism well, I think it's too advanced for Madden. If anything they should just add the team ratings from Head Coach and maybe incorporate a learning curve for new systems, not necessarily for new positions. Also I don't know if the current consoles and current game engine would be able to handle position knowledge.