Madden 27 Franchise Mode: Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:07] attention this year from EA than it has in many, many years. Free agent frenzy, how you offer player contracts, and what EA is calling the persona engine drive new methods for how you interact with your 53 man roster and try to build a

[00:20] thing to add a bunch of new features, it's a whole other thing making them you what's new in franchise mode and what amidst all the new stuff is actually useful. EA has unquestionably placed a renewed

[00:34] focus on its most popular and most played mode in recent times, and nothing has received more love in franchise mode than the UI and the overall aesthetics both in the menus and on the field. Yes, our long national nightmare is over as

[00:47] and faster than Joe Flacco's 40-yard dash time. Now, every franchise mode is at least one part RPG and one part spreadsheet spreadsheet simulator part of a franchise mode is the most important

[01:00] I'm the astronaut behind you right now telling you always has been. much more fluid this year and getting in and out of sub menus no longer leads to applying skill points to your players. While I still think there's plenty of

[01:15] as making the handy new contracts page available for every team rather than holy crap, this is the best new screen in the whole game and why isn't it everywhere, it's still a massive step up from previous years. A much improved

[01:28] weekly halftime show and weekly recap keep you engaged with stories from gives week-to-week matchups some mystery assuming you don't play in a dome. I've had a snowstorm breakout during the final drive of a game, yes Broncos fans,

[01:40] it can happen in Madden as well, and then other times I've had stop and start quarters. Real NFL coordinators are now will even become head coaches for other teams later in franchise mode. Not

[01:53] Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio as an example, but you're damn skippy >> Here's the one ushering them to the field, coordinator Jim Bob Cooter. or Jim Bob this year, these coaches still change your pre-game loadouts

[02:08] the way you wanted the week prior. So, keep in mind you'll need to manually swap them back before each game. There's also a functional coach mode this year, plays every week, you can execute your game plan and actually trust your AI QB

[02:21] scramble out of the pocket rather than to the coach mode in the sister title college football with the one broadcast cam that's in CFB is much better right now than the one in Madden,

[02:35] far more of the secondary during passing plays. I do hope that is patched at some point. Another thing that can bring down the is the wear and tear system. EA said they improved wear and tear for Madden

[02:47] 27, but that's simply not the case as once again, it is overtuned and kind of busted even more so than it has been in college football. EA has said coming to fix it, but now your players will routinely be banged up

[03:00] this wear and tear system a couple years that the year we finally have a usable coach mode again is also the year I have wear and tear right was with NFL head coach 09. Nevertheless, currently busted

[03:15] stuff aside, all this added flavor and optionality helps to keep things fresh as you put together winning seasons. Another revamped part of the UI is the main screen you work from. It now has tiles you cycle through that lay out all

[03:28] delegate, skip, or interact with all these tiles and this screen is designed to be one part organizer and one part news hub. We'll get to the news aspect in its own section since that has a lot of issues, but the point is you should

[03:41] this hub screen. That said, there is a problem that can arise if you're someone who likes simming multiple weeks at a time. In these instances, the game will everything set to manual in the menu. For example, when a player comes to you

[03:54] the request that week and don't click the option to tell him you'll get back to him down the line, the CPU will sign him after you sim to the next week. This multiple weeks since that means you are not doing any of the tasks during those

[04:09] given weeks. Games like NBA 2K or MLB The Show will always ask you before they make a change to your roster. Madden 27 doesn't and contracts you never planned ramifications for your cap space, especially when the contracts the AI

[04:23] than the ones you can sign the player for if you are in control of the negotiation. apologize in advance, but I have to nerd out here and talk about the NFL salary

[04:36] cap for a bit. EA chose this year to try and add more parts of the collective bargaining agreement, aka the CBA, to Madden 27, including no trade clauses, void years, early extensions, transition tags, RFAs,

[04:49] and comp picks to the bag of tricks for virtual GMs to utilize to manipulate the salary cap. About the only major things that are not here are roster bonuses and post-June 1st designations. These are huge additions for the realism and depth

[05:03] of the mode because manipulating the cap is a huge part of an NFL GM's job. Along with solid drafting, it's a massive way teams can get a leg up on each other as they seek to spend now and pay later. Teams who are currently competitive will

[05:16] as long as they can before they finally have to pay up in the form of massive amounts of dead money. However, Madden does not explain most of these new contract options to you, so here's a quick primer on some of the new contract

[05:29] options you might run into. First up are void years. Think of these like fake across as many as five seasons. If I give a player a $25 million bonus a one-year contract with four void years, this means I will only have $5 million

[05:43] on the cap that first season, assuming that player continues to play for my team all of those seasons. However, a player can't actually play on a void kick the can down the road and not get $20 million in dead money added to your

[05:57] to sign that player again next season and add void years once more to continue to keep that cap hit low. The GTD years will show up with little check marks choosing to guarantee when offering the contract. Signing bonuses are always

[06:12] guaranteed, but the GTD years guarantee the base salary column as well for the given seasons. Madden does not have roster bonuses, so I think this is their year options are something you can choose to select for the final year of

[06:26] they're based on the average of the NFL salaries at that position. That said, Madden 27 does not currently average the salary correctly, so you will need to be careful. I have seen a normal number like Bo Nix making about 40 million on

[06:40] his fifth year option, but I've also seen Drake May make 75 plus million on his fifth year rookie contract. I do not know how Madden is coming up with such a high number for May, but it is incorrect. A transition tag means other

[06:52] teams are allowed to offer a contract to that player, but you can match the offer. This particular tag ultimately allowed Daniel Jones to get the largest two-year contract in history from the Colts this past summer.

[07:04] Non-exclusive franchise tag, perhaps even less used than the transition tag. team can still sign your player, but if they do sign him, you will get two first compensation picks, you can tag free agents with a certain type of restricted

[07:19] free agency tender if certain factors are met. It's a bit complicated, but this or not. The higher the round pick you tag the player with, the less likely player. If you tag someone with a first round designation, this means they would

[07:33] gain a first round pick. With that out of the way, I do unfortunately have to like void years technically work with a few hiccups. The salary cap is not respected by the CPU. You can routinely see teams well over the cap, and it only

[07:48] gets worse as the years progress in your franchise. In real life, as much as the salary cap can be manipulated, the one thing you can never do is be over the cap during the season. I suspect this issue is due to a legacy bug, but this

[08:00] stuff like void years and early extensions that are supposed to be tools that you can use to push the money further down the road. In real life, you million in cap space during the year because they're always worried about

[08:13] going over the cap, and they want to have space to also make a move if an opportunity arises or an injury occurs. In Madden 27, you're lucky if more than it only gets worse the more years you go into franchise mode. So, in theory,

[08:28] cool new features to tinker with, keep in mind your opponents may not be playing by the same rules. Contract negotiations are all new this year as every negotiation is now a little mini game. You can't enter into

[08:42] minus the usual restructuring like moving base salary to a signing bonus unless they want to talk first. This can sign an extension with a player. If a player chooses to snub you or give you

[08:55] pressure on you once you do enter negotiations. Also, be aware, failing is not the end of the world. If you fail a negotiation in week three, you will likely get at least one more shot before

[09:07] the regular season ends. As for the mini game, it starts with a you're a huge salary cap junkie like me because it's static, not dynamic. It the overall terms of what the contract looks like as you play with the sliders,

[09:22] so most are not going to know what a 4-year $100 million deal with $40 million in signing bonus actually looks like. You'll need to sign the deal and then look at the contracts page to actually see the full details. In

[09:34] addition, it's not always clear why the default options are what they are on during free agency, you can see a player's desired APY and signing bonus ask in the contracts page, but that's not always what then shows up when you

[09:48] probably best to mention the persona engine now as negotiations and scenarios are the two areas it's most visible. Before I go any further, no, EA's

[10:00] nothing to do with a bunch of Japanese high school students battling their inner demons. And I've waited this long to get to the persona engine even though it's what EA says is driving most of the interactions in franchise mode because I

[10:12] too much from a tactics perspective. The persona engine is a bunch of personality mode gets tagged with that theoretically drives all their motivations and decisions. It will push them to be loyal to you in contract negotiations or drive

[10:26] a hard bargain in free agency and so on. It also plays a role in those emergent development traits. But here's the thing, I don't know if the persona engine is really working very well with the scenarios. Here's Saquon Barkley

[10:39] coming to me saying he's unhappy with how he's been playing and he wants me to challenge him to accomplish a stat goal. Okay, so I challenge him and his morale is at 65% before the goal. He then fails the goal in the next game,

[10:51] comes back to me the next week, and yet his morale is at 68% now. Yeah, the numbers just ain't numbering here. He did get the frustrated temporary DNA lower his morale by five, but clearly it did not. Barkley would then fail again

[11:06] of year goal to get a certain number of rushing stats, and after failing this goal, his morale went up to 99 and his ratings were still boosted. Point being, I don't think in most cases you need to sweat morale all

[11:18] all sort of spelled out for you how you should treat each persona during the negotiation. You have these five tiles that will vary based on the selections the interest meter before the patience meter goes to zero.

[11:32] personalities will take offense when you lowball them and all that, but it's tile or tiles you should pick because the game tells you what personality traits go with each one. You can just look at the personality traits of each

[11:46] player at the top of this negotiation screen to narrow it down. team first from the mindset and persona DNA area, and you see that same keyword in one of the five tiles for that step of the negotiation, picking the tile

[11:59] that matches up those keywords is usually a good idea to increase your Some of you may also get frustrated during negotiations when you just want a tile that will offer the player more money or years, but you may not be

[12:11] getting those options because you simply do not have the cap space to do it. In a if there was a negotiation tile that became available explaining that to a To be clear, I think it's a great idea to have something like 65-plus different

[12:25] personality traits driving the virtual decisions in this game, but I'm not sure being in most scenarios, including the contract talks. But, I do still like the system's potential if EA can wield the system to make more cause and effect

[12:38] outcomes feel interesting. Some other cool additions in Madden 27, might go unnoticed because, just like in the real NFL, they're rare. The new someone in the league is holding out or

[12:52] best way to tell if someone is holding out for a new deal is by going to the through and looking for the red hand on the right side of the screen, along with the description that the player is holding out until a new deal gets done.

[13:06] Players forcing a trade is rare in Madden 27, but these are cool emergent moments that should be more in our face than they are right now. Then again, of these cool new things aren't tuned very well, either.

[13:20] Free agent frenzy is arguably the biggest change to player movement in franchise mode, and this new 10-hour shopping spree replaces the old system problem is some of the issues from the old system are still here, so there is

[13:33] not always a lot of logic that goes into CPU decisions. People were unhappy that serve buffet during the beta as you could enter into negotiations and get a player to sign before anyone else talked to him. This would have been a disaster

[13:46] for online franchises and even for offline ones, it would have been less any offers until you simulate to the next hour. In the final release, this system has been adjusted so now you can see which teams are interested in each

[13:59] player. You will now enter a negotiation and try to make your best offer and reach 100% before a player's patience runs out just like any other Then when you simulate the hour, you will find out if you got the player.

[14:12] system so you don't really know why you were chosen or not. I've had players with financial mindsets not choose me even after I offered the most money, so I think total years of a deal and also your status as a franchise are factors

[14:25] you get deeper feedback for why you were not chosen or a player comes back to you offered me this much. Can you beat it or not?" So you'd have more of a chance to get into real signing battles. Another issue to be aware of is the CPU does not

[14:40] process. So let's say they sign an edge player in the first hour of free agency, they may sign a bunch of other edges that are all around that same overall rating in the hours that follow. There are some other logic irregularities as

[14:53] DeAndre Swift with the aforementioned transition tag and let him test free agency. Swift would have earned $24 million on a one-year deal since the top 10 salaries at the player's position to come up with his one-year contract.

[15:09] would transition tag Swift since they would not want him playing on that deal but regardless, Swift went to free agency and signed a three-year deal with $20 million. With this whole saga, the issue is why

[15:24] Patriots when he could just sign the transition tag and make more money. And beyond that, if the Bears were comfortable tagging him for $24 million, by the Patriots considering it would have made it much cheaper for them to

[15:37] keep him? The news ticker is the biggest offender when it comes to spitting out false information to you in Madden 27. As I with multiple years left in their deal. However, the game was not updated to

[15:50] sign players who are in the final years of their deal anymore. This causes a couple problems, but one of the big ones is that whenever a contract is changed restructuring or a full-on long-term extension, you will be informed that an

[16:04] the breaking news ticker and the transactions page can't even agree on what happened. Here is Sauce Gardner's breaking news ticker pop up and the transactions page show different numbers

[16:18] for his contract. So, which is it, a 4-year or 5-year deal for Sauce? Here's the kicker, it's neither. This deal already happened. That is the deal he means that's the deal he starts the game with. But, the breaking news ticker is

[16:31] resurfacing it because of some stuff happening under the hood. Without getting too deep in the weeds, his contract was restructured by the CPU treating it like a new deal even though no new money was added to it. You will

[16:44] see similar bugs when it says so-and-so signed a 7-year deal when it's more a 5-year extension. Ultimately, because right now the game may want to at least turn off the breaking news part of the ticker by

[16:57] going into the options menu within franchise mode. The NFL draft has also gotten some fresh updates even if the presentation is trades, but it's hard to notice due to the UI still not giving you much of an

[17:10] time in one of my tests, and as you can alert sounds. The team on the clock just changed from the Cardinals to the Vikings. Need to leave the draft area and go to the transactions page if you

[17:22] there is still not enough pick for pick trades during the draft by the CPU, but it is more lively than in the past. Some college prospect player heads were also because usually they're the ones that barely fit in the player portrait now.

[17:36] 40-year-old construction worker prospects as EA has not fully brought over the prospect generation system from college football as of yet. I would also strength of defensive tackles and guards in your auto-generated draft classes as

[17:50] those positions. One bright spot is they did remove the would give away whether a player had a hidden dev trait or not. So, people in your online franchises can no longer use that exploit to find hidden gems late in

[18:04] free agent frenzy for undrafted free agents following the NFL draft, and who have interest from many other teams as more times than not those are the prospects who have hidden dev traits. Wrapping things up, I want to go through

[18:18] a couple quick hitters. There have been improvements to the sim engine and the This means the Kansas City Chiefs playbook will no longer lead to every tight end becoming Travis Kelce, and teams will even change up their playbook

[18:31] and who they feature to fit the talent on the roster as the years progress. right now in simulations or at the very least quarterbacks and a couple other positions don't get hurt often enough. So, you'll see too many QBs with over

[18:44] 4,000 yards passing cuz they're all throwing the ball more than 600 times If you want to combat this, my recommendation would be to micromanage the injury slider. This means play your game with the injury slider at one

[18:57] setting, then raise it to something closer to 50 before simulating the week as the injury slider impacts the rate of injuries in games you play and simulate. back down to the number you like using when playing your game, and so on and so

[19:11] forth. I also want to give credit to the variety of stats leaders you will see while Cam Scamper tends to be near the top of the rushing list every year in all Sims, you will not see random slot receivers dominating in the same way

[19:23] guy like Patrick Mahomes fluctuate between 4,000 plus yard seasons and ones where he does not even reach 20 touchdown passes. defense where I have even seen a lot of different people lead the league in

[19:36] linebackers the right way, so guys like that Von will end the year with far too take the variety even if it comes with missteps. retirements. Sometimes Aaron Rodgers immunizes himself against retirement and

[19:51] plays at least one more season beyond year one because he leads the Steelers You will sometimes even get a chance to try and talk one of your players out of legacy issues remain, which means too many players league wide are hanging up

[20:04] their pads at young ages as you get deeper into franchise mode. This means talent level increase across the board since XP gains are too high and almost every team is an 80 plus overall by year five and beyond, there are far fewer 99

[20:17] overalls because not many players are playing past the age of 31. assistant coaches can become head coaches now, the coach hiring and firing system still lacks coherent logic. Many first year head coaches will be canned

[20:30] including Jeff Hafley in Miami and Robert Saleh in Tennessee. Even with me, an Nick Sirianni in year one and got fired the next year when I did not make judging you based on your contract length and what you did the prior

[20:46] season. But hey, fear not. Even after I got fired by the Eagles, when I went to look for a new job, the Eagles just brought me right back anyway. know who is going to win the Super Bowl in the comments below, and for

[20:58] in the comments below, and for everything else, stick with IGN.