The only way Moore could draw up my forecast was by watching me play. On the agenda: the yard dash, agility drills, and basic throwing and catching evaluations. I expected to be in the latter category. But I wanted my avatar to at least get a point on the board, at least complete a couple of passes, and at least lead a team to one victory over several simulations even if I broke an interception record for good measure. I wanted to show that the average dude could survive the rigors of the NFL.
The last organized sport I attempted was three semesters of club crew in college. I reached out to my former coach, Nathan Walker, to get an independent assessment of my athletic priors. I went to an elite-football high school but ran the debate team. But I still had a chance to succeed. Even bad players like me could get lucky now and then. Mine ended up being 9 out of , which makes me highly unlikely to take on Jadeveon Clowney and prevail. When I walked on the field to try out for the game, I found this idea oddly comforting.
I strolled onto the gridiron in Orlando wearing old gym clothes and the cheapest sneakers available, which I had ordered three days prior.
I did the three stretches I remembered from my middle school Presidential Physical Fitness Test — touch your toes, lunge side to side, twist your arm out of its socket — and some light jogging. That may have tired me out more than I expected. My yard dash and yard split times were poor — 6.
Those numbers were a problem because they determined my speed and acceleration grades, which are two of the most important ratings in Madden. No player to participate in the yard dash at the NFL combine since had a yard time as bad as mine.
Crawford still managed to run the dash 0. I have the maneuverability of a rudderless aircraft carrier. Then came a lunging jump, in which I posted a consistent 6-foot, 5-inch leap. Moore seemed less appalled than he had all day. It was one of the only times I felt anything approaching pride. The quarterback drills brought me back to earth. Asked to throw the ball as far as I could, I threw it pretty consistently between 17 and 20 yards in an often-loose spiral.
I then threw the ball toward my colleague Neil Paine, who was trying his hand at receiver, and connected only 40 percent of the time on short, medium and long passes. Watching the drills unfold, Moore said I was throwing the ball too low and would probably end up hitting offensive linemen in the back of the head often.
When I had exhausted my arm, I did some receiving drills — or attempted to. I was useless beyond 10 yards but caught each of the three short passes thrown my way. Brad Hilderbrand, a communications specialist for EA, said I could possibly be a great tight end. My pride swelled again. And then it withered the moment my foot touched a football.
Punting was no better. So, that's going to be hard for you to bulk up there and still maintain the performance that you put on display today. Leaving Orlando, I reflected on the day and felt one thing above all: extreme pain. My back was seizing up, my right arm went somewhat numb, and a nap had only made me more sore. When I got home in the wee-morning hours, I took enough ibuprofen to dull my senses and decided that I should exercise more often.
When I was first in Florida, EA mapped my face for an avatar by putting me in front of 12 high-definition cameras, each poised at a slightly different angle. It looked like what Jeremy Bentham would have made if he had gone into photography after he was tired of designing prisons. I posed seven ways — one mugshot, left and right profile shots, a natural smile, 4 one with my mouth slightly open, 5 one with a wrinkled forehead and eight chins, and one screaming.
When I saw the photos in December, they looked like I had just walked out of an anti-methamphetamine advertisement.
The photos came with polarized flashes that stripped my face of any shadow. Zooming in on the high-def shots made it look like I had slept in hot grease. Will Gibson, the technician who took the photos, said they made me look sort of like Ray Romano. But this, he said, was the point.
When I first met my avatar, it was like staring into a mirror set up across the uncanny valley. My facial features were nearly exact, down to the barely noticeable scar on my chin. But I looked disoriented — even more disoriented than I was on the day of the shoot. My neck lolled; my eyes were glazed over; my blinking was algorithmic.
My avatar played just as strangely as it looked. I did not. This is what happens when your Madden score is One problem with formation subs, however, is that they don't always put the correct players in the right positions.
For instance, an empty backfield shotgun formation may trot out a TE and a HB for your fourth and fifth WR positions even if you have a sufficient number of WRs on your roster. A word of warning, however, I've come across some rosters you can do this switcharoo with and some I could not. No worries, however, as you'll always be able to switch that WR back to his original position thanks to the player editor. The CFM says you can only position change at the start of a new season, but I've been able to do it during the season just fine.
Other reasons you may want to tinker with formation subs include resting certain players in specific situations above and beyond the coach Auto Subs sliders and to try and hit XP milestones and other goals. For instance, putting your rookie RB in at the goal line to farm TDs would be a good way to help him get Rookie of the Year and thus a jump up on his development trait. Gameplanning has been changed this year and is easier to get through.
Whether you sim or play through the drills you'll get player stat bonuses when the appropriate offensive and defensive formations you've trained such as cover 2, deep pass are called in a game. The computer suggests different gameplans each week depending on your opponent's tendencies. However, I think there's a better way to gain XP while still getting the on-field bonuses. First off, click on either an offensive or defensive gameplan. From here choose a drill that corresponds to the positions you want to strengthen QB, WR, etc.
Play the drill and make sure you get a gold medal for your efforts — you can restart the drill when while you're playing it to ensure this happens.
Each week you can specifically select the drill you've gotten a gold medal in — ignoring the computer's gameplan suggestion — and sim the training results to get the same high XP boost for the positions you've selected. You don't have to replay the drill. If you can select offensive and defensive gameplans that feature plays you'll likely to run during a game no matter the opponent cover 2, vertical passing routes, etc. Focus Training is also an aspect of the weekly gameplanning, and this lets you choose three players who get additional XP.
You may want to put those young players who have quick or superstar development traits viewable from the focus training player selection menu in order to maximize their growth. Age is important here, as a Reddit user has demonstrated why spending XP on player attributes and traits is basically a waste for players 26 and over. New this year is the practice squad. This is a part of the roster where you can stash eligible young players like those with quick or superstar development who don't count against the roster cap.
In Madden these players accrue XP, and like real-life, they can only be played if they're signed to your active roster. Also like in real-life, you are free to sign a player on another team's practice squad through the free agency menu. They'll then go on your active roster. In Madden this poaching aspect is an optional toggle in the settings menu, and if you decide to use it it's worth seeing who's on your practice squad and could be worth signing to bolster your depth.
Players on your roster with expiring contracts re-sign throughout the regular season. The process is highlighted more this year, with players communicating their specific contract demands.
Listen to them. In my experience, there's not a lot of leeway here. This is something I kind of anticipated as seeing high scoring CPU games is very common but every season I simmed absolutely blew away every yearly average from the last 10 years of the NFL. It mainly seems to be an issue with the absurdly high amount of rushing touchdowns there are but passing touchdowns, while not as bad, also had every season sim with more passing touchdowns than there have been in any NFL season in the last ten years.
This may not seem like a big one but it's another outlier in terms of the averages. Again, every season simmed had more plays on average than the highest season in the last ten years of the NFL. I'm guessing that this contributes but is definitely not directly responsible for the spike in scoring.
Broderick , mjavon , kongemeier and 3 others like this. Advertisements - Register to remove. Maybe I'm missing something but it looks like points per game is up about 2 in Madden over the average in the NFL? I'm not sure what you're showing would represent a jump in scoring in real life vs in the game to me.
The number of plays in the game can be influenced I believe by the settings but I'm assuming you ran 15 minute quarters with a minimal acceleration to the play clock? Unless you were referring to scoring from the run game as a subheader to 'the run game' header, in which case clearly there is a disconnect.
Quote: Originally Posted by coach Maybe I'm missing something but it looks like points per game is up about 2 in Madden over the average in the NFL? Your findings corroborate what I have seen as well.
I do not sim out 10 years, but I have done a lot of single season sims with my classic rosters. What you have found in consistent. I have found no way to reduce the number of plays in a simmed games. EA set it up to be between plays per team, per game. It normally runs towards the higher side of that. The result is, as you have seen, higher number of plays equals higher yardage totals equals more points per game.
As you pointed out, a couple of plays per game, a couple more points per game seems insignificant until you look at the whole season and realize that means a lot of plays, yards and points. Interesting stuff. Hopefully 18 tweaked this a bit. Yards and completion percentages seemed to be fine, but TDs were just too high. I will say T Dawgs XP sliders did help a little bit. With the Madden 16 season starting to wind down, we are turning our attention toward Madden This is one of the most common mistakes that most good but not great Madden players make when they pick up the new game.
What worked in Madden 16 will not work in Madden Sure, basic football concepts will still work great but all those money plays and nano blitzes you learned will very liked have been fixed. Spending a solid hour in practice mode or in a lab game is much more valuable than spending 10 hours playing games. If you find that the Cover 3 defense is the most popular coverage in Madden 17, all you have to do is hop into practice mode, choose a cover 3 defense and run different plays against it to figure out what works.
I guarantee that in 15 minutes, you will have at least 3 plays that you know will beat the cover 3 every time.
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