[canes21]

To get a quality game out, EA needs to redo many areas of the game. However, as long as Madden keeps printing them money annually, there isn't much incentive to overhaul any areas of the game. Whether the game sells well because the silent majority actually enjoy it, or people buy it more because of the NFL shield, or because they love football more than they hate Madden, none of that matters. The game sells well and the NFL and EA only care about sales in the end.

In a hypothetical world, though, I think EA should really be rebuilding the entire game from the ground up. What I wish would have been done is they took the opportunity with the new college game to give them an excuse to have a team behind the scenes completely building a brand new football game foundation. This would be building the locomotion from the ground up, a completely new trench system to revolutionize line play, new coaching AI, roster building AI, a franchise foundation allowing for more feature-packed and immersive gameplay off the field, etc.

Once they have it ready to go for Madden and the CFB game, they release both games on the brand new football engine they built, legacy issues are gone, we have new gameplay systems that were built specifically for the challenges EA knew they'd face, and most of us are happy because we have two football games that are finally feeling modern and polished.

Unfortunately, I don't think that is the world we live in. I am not against your idea of EA basically giving us a roster update one year to allow for them to rebuild the game, but like I initially said, as long as sales continue to be at the level they are annually, EA doesn't have much incentive to change anything. While EA can go and mess up and kill off plenty of other beloved franchises like they have for years now, the NFL shield is simply too strong. As long as the game somewhat functions and is the only NFL game in town, it's going to sale.