EA Sports Unveiled Their Upcoming Changes To Franchise Mode In Madden 23 And It May Actually Be Good!
I'm not sure if these changes are the product of the neverending bitching that every new Madden is just a roster update, the most ridiculous offseason of superstar movement I can remember, or the iconic namesake of the game passing away this year. But it looks like EA Sports is actually going to give all of us stimulation football supernerds a couple of crumbs of change!
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure all the excitement of adding features where players chase rings and/or warm weather cities with beautiful women will dissipate once we realize the gameplay and announcing tracks are the same as the last five Maddens. However, this is the time of the football calendar where we get excited about the announced changes in Madden, offended about what the rating of players on our favorite team are, and then realize we made up our minds about whether or not we were going to buy this years game months ago.
The bottom line is until EA Sports wants Madden to be the force it was when we were all growing up, they are going to have to add features to Franchise Mode that makes it feel like you are IN THE GAME, which is obviously said in this guy's voice.
I'm talking about billionaire owners holding cities hostage for funding of new stadiums with the threat of moving the team to a new city (London is the new LA), superstars wiping their Instagram of every image that had a team logo, and hold-outs/hold-ins/whatever crazy shit football players do to get a few extra guaranteed dollars playing a sport that has 100 different human car crashes any given Sunday.
However, as long as this guy is in charge of the exclusive licensing agreement with EA Sports, there is a less than 0% chance any of that happens.
Oh well. I'm just going to hope that these changes are the beginning of a renaissance for Madden while also fully preparing myself that they won't be yet hope for the best since I am someone that EA can bank on getting my $59.99 every single year, even when they don't have the GOAT on the cover.
Now I'll wrap up this blog about Madden Franchise Mode with my favorite Madden Franchise Mode stories from my college days since they still crack me up all these years later and it helps me cope with my life being the polar opposite of college now.
The Mike Alstott Story
A not so quick story just because it's the second thing I think of when I hear the name Mike Alstott after him crushing human bodies and souls. When I was in college, my roommates and I had a 10-man Madden franchise. Everyone was allowed to make one trade per season since we didn't want every team to essentially become fantasy rosters. Most people would trade for a quarterback or stud receiver or middle linebacker. Well my one buddy used his one trade on a fullback named Michael Joseph Alstott. While everyone loved Alstott for reasons that can easily be identified in that 60 second video, using your one trade on a short yardage back in Madden seemed like a crazy move since you could just sort Free Agents by Break Tackle and get a pretty decent option without using your one trade.
Since we needed to keep the league moving, if you didn't play your game in a couple of days, you would get simulated. The one rule was Injuries would be turned off since we live in a society and all. Well the Alstott owner had held us up because he had a full day of classes. The other owners wanted to get their game in because college students have never been the most patient bunch. The Alstott owner walked in the house a few hours later after a couple of games had been played and the season had been saved. He asked if he won, was told that he lost, and then said "Well at least you turned injuries off, right?". The kid's face who hit Simulate told everyone the answer was clearly "No, I forgot". We went to the Injury Report page for the Franchise and all we saw was:
Mike Alstott (Herniated Disc) - Out For Career
Not out for the week or the year. But out for career. Game Over. Because of a simulation. Still the most brutal thing I have seen in Madden just because it was so easily preventable, which of course makes it better because we still bust the Alstott owners balls for getting his soul ripped clean out of his body because of a video game til this day. So thank you Mike Alstott for not only providing wonderful memories on the football field but also on the video game operating table.
The Tale Of Horse Moo
Not to date myself, but when I was in college we used to have a Madden league and imported NCAA Football rosters for new draft classes. One of my roommates was the Texans and drafted RB 34 from Oregon State AKA Steven Jackson. When it came time to rename him to Steven Jackson, he instead chose to rename him to Horse Moo because that’s what he said a queef sounded like. Yes I realize how ridiculous that sounds, but in college you don’t really bat an eyelash when one of your friends does something stupid. Well, every time Horse Moo played against our friend who was the Colts (which was a lot since they were in the same division and we banged out a full Madden season every two weeks or so despite 10 idiots playing in it), he would run for roughly a billion yards and the Colts player would scream “FUCK YOU HORSE MOOOOOOO!!!” as the Texans player would scream “HORSE MOOOOOOOO!!!!!” at the top of their lungs. So when I hear the name Steven Jackson, I think of him being named Horse Moo in Madden after a ridiculous description of the sound a queef makes then think about the former All Pro running back then think about this funny anecdote of Jackson refusing to take a drug test. This story may have taken home the bronze medal, but it’s a strong bronze in my mind
The Curtis Martin Game
My buddy and I played the NFC Championship Game of our franchise during our townhouse's Christmas party. Full crowd of drunk idiots as he kept tossing 50 yard touchdowns to Randy Moss in double coverage, ends up beating me by 3 to win.
He decides to play the Super Bowl vs. the Jets right after we finish. He's leading a close game almost the entire time and scores a TD to Moss with 20 seconds left. Jets get the ball, Curtis Martin runs a diagonal route in the middle of the field, and takes it 80 yards to win the Super Bowl as the entire house goes crazy while my friend's soul leaves his body.
The Curtis Martin Game lives in infamy til this day.