Ultimate Madden 15 Franchise Mode Guide - brandon.thezink's Blog

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Ultimate Madden 15 Franchise Mode Guide

Posted on April 30, 2015 at 07:31 PM.

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The original guide can be found at the following link and may be occasionally updated: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15nIlNI2oa5l-EojvogsDPrtJBMqP5YadabRfGPjONrI/edit?usp=sharing

Ultimate Madden 15 CFM Guide

For those of you who don�t know, Madden allows you to run your own franchise as an owner, be the coach of one, or be a player in one. While I won�t be explaining player much (it�s pretty self explanatory, just play the game), I�ve spent hundreds of hours pouring over coach and owner mode with numerous different styles and I would like to collect them all for you.

Choosing a Team
Now this only really matters if you aren�t doing a fantasy draft (explained next). If you are doing a fantasy draft, just choose your favorite team or best color combo, it has no effect on draft position or anything else. If you�re running a �real� (non-fantasy) franchise, it�s best to choose a bad-ish team or a team going over a hump (like Patriots post Brady). Playing as the Seahawks is just too easy. Some of my favorites are the Rams, Texans, or Browns. They have a few great players with a lot of gaps to fill. The choice is ultimately yours, and any team can be made fun.

Fantasy Draft
Fantasy Draft is probably my favorite mode, but it�s hard to make it original. You find yourself developing tendencies and it makes it so that you get a very consistent team that takes away from the spontaneity. Generally you�ll get a pick between 14 and 25, the top five are very rare to get as a human. Here are the tips I�ll give you as to how I build the best team, and check the rookie draft page as well for what positions are the easiest to build at a later time.
1) QBs go very early, if you want a capable franchise QB you�ll have to pick one in the first round. Manziel goes in the second with super star development, and for some reason Ryan Mallett always overachieves for me.
2) HBs go late, they drop quite a bit and are bountiful. Even AP doesn�t go until the third.
3) WRs and TEs go early, if you want an elite one of either you�ll have to pick them up in the first three rounds.
4) OL is easy to get later, especially an interior player, and are easy to upgrade and find in rookie drafts, but are vital to a teams success.
5) DL drop quite a bit, but the elite ones go in the first three rounds.
6) DE tend to go at a fairly consistent rate, but again your 90+ overall type are going to go early.
7) CBs go consistent again, but the top five go in the first round.
8) The rest of your secondary can be picked up later, and are fairly easy to find in drafts.
9) This is probably the most important position to stock up on here, LBs are hard to find in rookie drafts and FA, and there are lots of young LBs with good development to take here.
When I do a fantasy draft I tend to completely forgo an area, generally my secondary, maybe picking up one capable safety and leaving the rest to 78 overall players. Like I said before, LBs should be a priority, make sure you pick them to fit your scheme. Aldon Smith is not a good fit for a 4-3 OLB, but could be moved to a 4-3 LE. I like to take WRs early, players like OBJr. and Watkins are great third or fourth round takes with high developments, and I take Brandin Cooks as a slot receiver as he tend to rack up XP somehow without a great development. I like my entire OL to be above 80, and mixing with established veterans to be replaced a couple years down the road and young players with high developments that I can turn into franchise players and move around the line as needed. HB is a nice position to pick up late as they can be hard to find in the rookie draft and you can snatch LeSean McCoy in the seventh. At least one good DL is a must, ends are far easier to find in the rookie draft. (Before you start a Fantasy Draft after reading this, I would read the rookie draft section. You can make much more informed decisions knowing what positions are easier to build in the draft.)

Managing Your Team
Throughout the season, most of what you are going to do is play the games (if you don�t sim them), use your time to earn XP or improve confidence, and upgrade players. Games are self-explanatory, there�s plenty of videos on the web for how to get better at Madden (run the god dang ball, people). Spending your weekly time is easy, just click on whatever position you want to upgrade and go to town. The computer can�t target certain players, so doing this by hand is tedious by brings about great results. And that brings us to spending XP. If you�re looking for a quick overall upgrade, improve awareness. This could also be called football IQ, and varies in importance for position but always helps. For a QB this is extremely important and makes Tom Brady and Peyton Manning better than anyone else. Obviously things like speed and acceleration are hard to upgrade. If you have a young player that you like (QB for instance), making the 15,000 XP investment to upgrade development can easily be worth it in the long run.

Resigning Players
As the season comes to a wrap, you�ll have to resign your players. Often checking your Salaries page at the beginning of each season will give you an idea of whose contract is up after this next year and you can start developing their replacement. Unfortunately, you can�t keep everybody. Via looking at stats and your team leaders you can tell which players may have a low overall but perform well, are vice versa, and those are players to target or let hang dry. QBs will demand a lot of money if they�re good, so drafting a rookie four years before you need to start him can be a good plan (resign them after four years to a long term contract, then start them and upgrade quickly). Some players will over demand, and others will ask for less. If you don�t know how to do this, let the computer. They�ll try to keep your core players and let some of your depth walk that you can easily replace in free agency.

Free Agency
This is half of building your team for the future, so spend some time scrolling through the players. Don�t look at a 98 player and spend all your cap space on him, eight middle-of-the-road players that you can develop will make a much larger impact than a superstar. You also don�t need to meet every need here, the draft is a great place to fill some as well. I generally let the computer do the first two weeks as they are great at offering depth players contracts, and come week three I cash in. Here, any player with zero offers will take dirt to play. Sometimes it makes no sense. For instance, in my last franchise Julio Jones hit free agency. He has twenty something offers, but declined all of them. Come week three, I offered him a six year $4mil/year deal and he took it at a 94 overall. That�s practically a free star. Cashing in here is the best use of your money, and offering a star player $1mil or $2mil a year isn't bad, they�ll often take it.

Scouting/Drafting
Come week four of the offseason, after all free agency is out of the way, you�ll be able to scout. Buying the scouting package with your coach can make this much easier. Go through your roster and identify the key holes you need to fill, I�ll outline how to scout for them and the chance you�ll find a viable replacement.

Scouting is simple, scout the letter grade for intangible. If it�s a C or B (I�ve never seen an A on a rookie), scout the physical. A C int and A phy will give you a high seventies or low eighties player. A B int and A phy will give you a low to mid eighties player. A generally only take these two types, potentially a B/B if I really need a player there (players will A phy will give you more long term development as physical skills cost much more to upgrade). Going through and scouting the positions you need at reasonable round predictions will give you a great outline to start with.

QB - Easy to find if you�re willing to spend a first round pick, never pick below a C int and A phy, this will give you about an eighty overall and a good chance at quick or superstar development.
RB/WR/TE - Hard to find, a lot of C int and B phy players that give you depth and potential starters down the road, very few year one starters unless they�re a top ten pick.
OL - Easy to find plug and play players here, generally three or four at each spot that you can choose, especially the tackles.
DL - Harder to find year one starters, but potential players are plentiful here if you can give them a couple of years.
DE - Easy to find, especially Speed Rushers, and often taking three or so is a great bet for a superstar player in there.
LB - Hard to find, I�m lucky if there is one a draft outside the top ten players that I would consider taking. If you have a good LB, dont� let them go.
CB - By far the easiest position to find, there are tons of C int A phy players to choose from, just find ones that fit in your scheme and take a few. I once had ten superstar corners I drafted, couldn�t bring myself to get rid of any knowing how great they could be.
FS/SS - Generally there if one year one starter for each of these positions, and a few down the road potentials.
K/P - They come in with a low overall, but are easy to upgrade, generally go for power here as it is the harder of the two to upgrade.

When I�m in the draft, I generally switch to the scouted page. Here I will scroll down, looking for my top C/A player or B/A player that I need. Even if there is a B/A player a a position you really need that isn�t supposed to go until the fourth, wait and take him in the late second or third. Remember, the draft is about finding value, not taking a B/A player that�s supposed to go undrafted (I�ve seen it before) in the first round.

Position Changes and Depth Chart
After the draft you have the opportunity to move your guys around to fill holes. The main reason I use this is to shift my LBs around to create more depth or to flip LE and RE. Moving your OL around to fill holes is a possibility, but a players overall will drop three to five points when moved from guard to tackle or vice versa. (Guards are generally much easier to find in fantasy drafts and free agency, so sometimes it�s worth it to take a few guards and move them to tackle, even with the drop in overall.)

I tend to sim through the offseason as even if I am playing all the games, the offseason doesn�t matter and I don�t want to play with my second stringers. Come week one (regular season), go through and adjust your depth chart. The computer will automatically change it so that the maximum total overall is available (adjusted for confidence), but often you want a rookie to get experience and you may suffer three or four overall points, but moving you rookie CB up to CB3 or CB2 can be worth it. Also, it will often shift your OL around, so move it back if you are set on certain players in certain positions. Now, or at the beginning of the preseason, is a good time to look over one-year free agents to see if any good ones slipped through the cracks to bolster your team.

Progressing Players
So this is probably where the game ismos broken. If you want to keep your team realistic, just auto-progress everything. This is the way in which you make your team ridiculously overpowered. I tend to progress at the midway point of the season (week 9), at the end of the season, and then again after playoffs (given that you make it to them). The most important stat to progress to up a players overall is awareness, this is, in short, football smarts. I mentioned this some above, but I really think this deserves an entire section. Awareness will up any position, but it is also important to know what positional schemes your team is running (refer to the next section for schemes to set and how to mess with them). A 3-4 OLB will benefit more from block shedding versus a Cover 2 OLB will benefit more from man and zone coverage. Knowing this can help you influence overall the most. Physical skills are far more expensive to upgrade, which is why drafting a player with A physical is important. Things like play recognition, ball carrier vision, and awareness are so valuable and cost so little to upgrade. If you have a young player, spending the money on a development speed increase can often be worth it, especially if you are committed to that player.

Schemes
Now most people I know don't even bother adjusting these (it�s under the same tab as free agents and trade center), but I find it can make a huge difference. Now you obviously want to adjust these to your own likes and wants for how you play the game or build your team, but I advise you to set it once and rarely change it as your team takes a hit in performance when you do (I don�t know if the game is designed to do that as a �new offensive/defensive system� or if it�s just a consequence of a change in overall). The most effective systems I�ve found that provide lots of players in rookie drafts are as follows.

Offensive Scheme - Balanced
Offensive Playbook - Balanced or Pass Balanced (if you�re a passing team, choose an appropriate run playbook if you�re a running team)
Defensive Scheme - Hybrid (choose this one, it is by far the most effective, build your team more 4-3 like for this)
Defensive Playbook - Patriots (again, choose this, and build 4-3)

QB - Balanced (really anything besides mobile)
HB - One Cut (anything besides receiving or speed)
FB - choose whatever you want, not important
WR 1 through 3 - Possession or Red Zone (they�re the easiest to find in drafts by far)
TE - Receiver/Vertical Threat
OL - Balanced or Pass

DE - Speed Rusher (easiest to find in drafts, like ridiculously easy)
DT - Nose Tackle or Run Stopper (fits well with a pass rush off the edge)
LB - Balanced (I�m still toying with this one, but balanced has seemed most even for all LBs in this, adjust and comment if you find something better)
CB - Man to Man (fits well with Pats playbook and easiest to find in draft
FS - Zone (I like the Seattle type FS zone and SS big hitter, plus I think it works well most of the time, adjust to your preference)
SS - Playmaker (boost tackle, pursuit, and hit power; makes a great user control big hitter, and even better if you can boost catching for interceptions)

Trades
The trade deadline is automatically set to week 6, which keeps you from dumping off a player whose contract is about to expire the week of the Super Bowl. There are some tips I can give you to make your trades better, besides the Master Trade Negotiator upgrade. For the CPU, they often don�t want to give up players and would much rather dump off a draft pick, as a player will give a team a cap hit of now dead money equal to the rest of the signing bonus owed to them (there are plenty of guides on how salary caps work, they�re the same as the actual NFL). A weird fact, computers love terrible WRs. You may hear people talk about a �WR Trade Rape�, and it really is. If you have no self control, pretend you didn�t just read that. But you can take three WRs off of free agency and sign them to a one year deal (like 76 overall receivers), and every computer team will love them. You can get just about any player under 92 overall that way besides a QB. Now I hate using this as it makes the game too easy, so often times throwing an extra receiver in to buff up a trade that you feel is fair for a player you really want is acceptable and doesn�t break the game (metaphorically).

Roster and Cap Management
Now this is an area that I like to think of myself as a foremost expert in, as I generally keep a ridiculous amount of cap space available even with a 95 overall team. And here�s some tips how. If you get a bad rookie (less than 72 overall), cut him, as long as your net savings is positive. You may think he�ll develop, but he won�t. Never have more than two lineman at any position. If you�re gonna load up on reserves, do it at CB, WR, and LB. They�re cheap to get some 78 players and seem to get injured a lot. If you have some 80+ overall backup at a single player position (QB, SS, FS, LE, RE), add him to the trade block. A third round pick will do you a lot more favors than a player who never touches the field. And lastly, and I think this is the most important part, free agency is to fill holes, the draft is to add depth. I love going into a draft with twelve or more picks, even if I don�t use them and deal them off, I can add depth at shallow positions where I may not need them anytime soon, but it means I don�t have to overpay my DL that is my only startable one come resign season.

Be an Owner
Now you can probably find a few guides outlining the best prices for every single thing out there, but I never touch prices. They may make you +/- $1mil a season, but they�re a hassle and don�t affect much. These are the two areas to touch. Your staff; hire the best ones possible. They�re worth it and cost a very little amount of your overall funds. Upgrade your stadium or move your franchise; the more seats the merrier and they few million it costs to upgrade is worth it. But the most important thing to making a lot of money is winning. Winning will take care of all of your problems with money in owner mode.

Now hopefully this covers everything you could want to know plus some. As an example, I am currently 15-1 in my latest franchise, with an MVP caliber sophomore QB and three Super Bowls in four seasons as the Houston Texans (no fantasy draft) following these rules above. If you stick to them, you can run a long-term successful franchise.