The Madden NFL Off Topic Thread

Paully D

Madden 15 seems to be very quiet. No promotion at all yet, not even a cover vote announcement. There also has been apparently been no Madden Game Changer events either.

Pasta Padre speculates that they might be drawing it out to coincide with the NFL doing the same with events during the offseason, but also suggests that EA have not confirmed their contract extension with the NFL as an exclusive. Interesting.

http://www.pastapadre.com/2014/03/28/start-of-madden-nfl-15-promotion-has-slipped-well-beyond-the-cycle-norm

Usually by this point in the year not only has the upcoming Madden been officially “announced” but the marketing cycle kicked off with cover related activities. The trend of fan voting to choose representatives for the cover has lost significant steam as of late however and it seems evident now that Madden NFL 15 is unlikely to feature a tournament and may go away from fan cover selection completely.

Previous cover campaigns and tournaments have been announced in February (as early as the 1st of the month) with candidates rolled out that month and into March when the voting would begin to coincide with the NCAA Tournament.

Last year’s cover tournament was listless despite the presence of legends and 64 candidates. The number of voters participating has slid while number of votes has risen due to expansion of the process. It’s fairly easy to collect the numbers they did when there are 62 individual pairings to vote on by the time it’s over.

The NFL has shifted some of its events to spread out more evenly activity during the off-season. Madden may be following suit by beginning a media blitz later in the year especially with the window more wide open due to the lack of an NCAA Football title that would require marketing coordination between the two properties. There’s also the question of whether another company may have secured the NFL license to consider, given that EA Sports would not confirm their extension as exclusive, which would cause them to be more guarded in what information was made public so far in advance of Madden’s release.

PerrinV2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLlfmaCfmDY

http://www.easports.com/madden-nfl/news-updates-gameplay/article/madden-15-release-date

helimachoptor

Underwhelmed with that

Knex*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73Q7QHPcsv0

giffney1991

It is supposed to be a complete defensive overhall...

guns4all

Anyone have any inkling of who they might choose next year as their team?
Or teams they are gonna avoid like the plague!!

Think ill be picking quite late, and am looking for a team to develop as the seasons go on.
A bit of cap space would help as well.

Ill be avoiding the Raiders I think as I dont rate Schaub. Same goes for Matt Ryan and the Falcons.

May take a stab at Buffalo, Arizona or Minnesota myself

Knex*

The draft could have a big say in it, for me. Wonder who's gonna take Manziel :P

If Texans took Teddy B, I'd be very tempted to go them. Browns could be another good shout.

I'd avoid Panthers at all costs. Newton's contract up for renew and zero receivers.

guns4all

Knex. wrote: »

The draft could have a big say in it, for me. Wonder who's gonna take Manziel :P

If Texans took Teddy B, I'd be very tempted to go them. Browns could be another good shout.

I'd avoid Panthers at all costs. Newton's contract up for renew and zero receivers.

Yeah looking forward to Johnny Football tearing it up next season and hopefully his team drops far enough for me

Paully D

As Knex says, the draft will have a big part in it. Depending on where the rookies land will change a lot. The first rounders especially are easy to upgrade to top players quickly.

Cardinals and Rams would be decent to use, probably the two I'm most attracted to at the minute considering my likely draft position and without putting a whole lot of thought into it.

Good, young defenses, Palmer and Bradford are more than usable, and with the Rams you've got two very high draft picks coming so likely another two 90+ players OVR after season one. Another good thing about them is that you're guaranteed to have at least two other human opponents in your division with the 49ers and Seahawks, and given the lack of players we're likely to have due to people switching over, that will certainly be one of the main things I consider when picking my team. I'd probably end up having to put a trade together for a better RB if I got either of them though.

Mikeyt086

Re-entering the league at presumably mid-to-low draft pick I really think I'll take the Jags on again this year. Building the Jags up on Madden 13 and capping it with a Super Bowl and MVP for Tebow was a ridiculous amount of fun. It just didn't feel the same with the Cowboys in M25 (and it wasn't the game, I liked 25 more). I doubt the off season moves will be enough for someone to take an early punt on them, even with the improved O and D line and hopefully a fresh rookie QB, losing an elite Madden RB like MJD should see them slide.

Paully D

So how about the Browns for Madden 15 then lads?

Paully D

Paully D wrote: »

So how about the Browns for Madden 15 then lads?

i called them man

empacher

After playing madden this year, I'm going to base my pick on salary cap, contracts, defence, I don't rate offence highly in madden. I tend to have to build a team to fit my scheme.

Paully D

Axton Fancy Wool wrote: »

i called them man

Fine, I'll take the Vikings! :pac:

PerrinV2

helimachoptor

Titans have a great o line tbh, the guy controlling the qb is useless though!

Mikeyt086

I absolutely love the Jags draft for Madden. It's literally tailored to my game.

We drafted Blake Bortles for QB in the 1st round. A huge Big Ben type QB with a cannon for an arm. Should be easy to farm XP for his accuracy and consistency and then we're flying.

2nd and 3rd round we got two excellent WRs in Marquise Lee and Robinson. Lee in particular I can't wait to use, and to go along with Cecil Shorts III it will be an excellent speedy WR core.

The O-Line has two new units to mould, along with Luke Joeckel who I'm sure will develop quickly.

Our late picks were on D, one of them was an outside linebacker who ran a 4.52 40 yard dash. This pleases me.

Can't wait now!

Paully D

Mikeyt086 wrote: »

I absolutely love the Jags draft for Madden. It's literally tailored to my game.

We drafted Blake Bortles for QB in the 1st round. A huge Big Ben type QB with a cannon for an arm. Should be easy to farm XP for his accuracy and consistency and then we're flying.

2nd and 3rd round we got two excellent WRs in Marquise Lee and Robinson. Lee in particular I can't wait to use, and to go along with Cecil Shorts III it will be an excellent speedy WR core.

The O-Line has two new units to mould, along with Luke Joeckel who I'm sure will develop quickly.

Our late picks were on D, one of them was an outside linebacker who ran a 4.52 40 yard dash. This pleases me.

Can't wait now!

You'll be doing well to land them I think mate. Good chance someone will snap them up early-ish IMO for all the reasons you've listed and especially as they're likely to be in a division with all other human teams.

adrian522

Mikeyt086 wrote: »

I absolutely love the Jags draft for Madden. It's literally tailored to my game.

We drafted Blake Bortles for QB in the 1st round. A huge Big Ben type QB with a cannon for an arm. Should be easy to farm XP for his accuracy and consistency and then we're flying.

2nd and 3rd round we got two excellent WRs in Marquise Lee and Robinson. Lee in particular I can't wait to use, and to go along with Cecil Shorts III it will be an excellent speedy WR core.

The O-Line has two new units to mould, along with Luke Joeckel who I'm sure will develop quickly.

Our late picks were on D, one of them was an outside linebacker who ran a 4.52 40 yard dash. This pleases me.

Can't wait now!

Colvin was a good pick as well, assuming his injury wont carry over to Madden.

Raoul

Mikeyt086 wrote: »

I absolutely love the Jags draft for Madden. It's literally tailored to my game.

We drafted Blake Bortles for QB in the 1st round. A huge Big Ben type QB with a cannon for an arm. Should be easy to farm XP for his accuracy and consistency and then we're flying.

2nd and 3rd round we got two excellent WRs in Marquise Lee and Robinson. Lee in particular I can't wait to use, and to go along with Cecil Shorts III it will be an excellent speedy WR core.

The O-Line has two new units to mould, along with Luke Joeckel who I'm sure will develop quickly.

Our late picks were on D, one of them was an outside linebacker who ran a 4.52 40 yard dash. This pleases me.

Can't wait now!

Not meaning to be unfair to you but I sort of hate the whole xp thing. Madden really need to tone down certain things such as impact blocking and big hitter stuff and being able to boost up particular traits to make your players much better. Fair enough to do it to a certain extent but sometimes for me I think it makes the game a bit ridiculous. Without the sliders it was desperate, all you had to do was pump up your impact blocking and you would have an unstoppable run game. Perhaps I am slightly bitter as I didn't boost mine up as much as I should have early on.

empacher

Totally agree. Bumping wide recievers release to 99 and them breaking dpuble coverage easily is a joke. It sickens me when people beat Revis in man coverage based on speed alone has madden doesn't seem to think route running has a major effect on things.

Knex*

Two valuable XP tips I've just picked myself up. Cheers fellas :pac:

Mikeyt086

Raoul wrote: »

Not meaning to be unfair to you but I sort of hate the whole xp thing. Madden really need to tone down certain things such as impact blocking and big hitter stuff and being able to boost up particular traits to make your players much better. Fair enough to do it to a certain extent but sometimes for me I think it makes the game a bit ridiculous. Without the sliders it was desperate, all you had to do was pump up your impact blocking and you would have an unstoppable run game. Perhaps I am slightly bitter as I didn't boost mine up as much as I should have early on.

Yep the franchises could do without it but I don't expect it to be gone any time soon. Adds an almost RPG element to the career. As always with EA games the balance is a bit off, of course next year it will be too extreme a counter and those traits will be too weak and others will be too strong.

Mikeyt086

Paully D wrote: »

You'll be doing well to land them I think mate. Good chance someone will snap them up early-ish IMO for all the reasons you've listed and especially as they're likely to be in a division with all other human teams.

Maybe I can sweet talk my way into some sort of unspoken deal where nobody takes the Jags and I make everyone sigs again.

Paully D

The cover vote is well under way, with the 2nd round vote open until the 22nd. Only a few weeks until we know who wins it:

http://www.espn.go.com/nfl/feature/maddenvote

First round winners:



No idea who will win it, Sherman if I had to guess, though I'm sure it would be very "convenient" (;)) if Kuechly was to win it given that he was the main man for the first trailer and there is likely to be a focus on defense this year.

adrian522

If Sherman is in the cover I ain't buying it.

helimachoptor

Cant see if being anyone else than him!

Don't care who's on the cover once it's not an eagle tbh it rarely works out well for a player

adrian522

I'll prepare my letter of resignation in that case.

PADRAIC.M

Best damn corner in the league (mediocre corner in Madden)