Madden 26 Team Ratings Are Pure Cowardice That Only Hurt Franchise Mode Fans -- and Everyone Else

NFL teams are judged by wins and losses and talent does not always lead to success (sup, Eagles Dream Team), but when I boot up Madden 26’s franchise mode and see that there’s only a difference of 10 points between the top-rated team (Ravens) at 88 overall and the worst-rated team (Browns) at 78 overall, I can only assume this is a deeply unserious ratings system.

Ratings are the fundamental building block of every sports game. It’s the core RPG element that shapes everything else, and all those numbers mean things on and off the field. Those numbers have power. They have the power to make one player exponentially faster than another. They have the power to make one QB far more accurate than another. They have the power to make one player far more valuable in a trade than another. And they have the power to make people like me not really care about ever rebuilding a team that’s just 10 points lower in overall rating than the best team in the game.

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The Browns stink. They’re not trying to win, and they probably don’t even want to win very much considering they traded for the Jags’ first-round pick in next year’s draft to ensure they have the option to trade up for a QB just in case they do win a few too many games this season. They’re preparing to eat $100+ million in dead Deshaun Watson money during the next couple seasons — Watson is already playing the game and acting like he’s healthy enough to return sooner than later to ensure the Browns have no way to wiggle out of some of that fully guaranteed money. They also re-signed Myles Garrett to a market-setting deal because they decided a player that talented just doesn’t move teams very often (which is probably fair). Point being, the Browns are in trouble these next couple years both in terms of salary cap and talent level.

The NFL Has A Brilliant Competitive Balance System In Place

But if I’m being charitable about the rationale behind EA’s 78 OVR Browns rating, the allure of the NFL, and at least part of why it’s so successful, is that most teams are technically only ever two years away from being at least a pseudo-contender. This rebuilding timeline is only really true in the NFL. On average, rebuilds in the NBA, NHL, and MLB all take way longer than rebuilds in the NFL.

Teams that push all their chips into the middle ultimately have to take their medicine at some point (unless you’re the always-in-denial Saints) and eat a bunch of dead cap while trimming the roster down and looking for fresh talent, but that only takes two years if you nail the moves. Teams truly in the dumpster (like the Browns) have a tighter window to squeeze through due to having multiple problems all at once, but the formula is mostly the same. You get younger, cheaper, and hopefully hit on a franchise-level QB in the NFL Draft.

You can look at recent teams like the Texans, the Commanders, and perhaps even the Patriots/Bears this season as three examples of a version of this formula playing out. If you play it right, you also build up an amazing roster around the rookie QB on a rookie contract and create a Super Bowl window before the QB even hits his prime (and starts making market-value money) by being able to splurge on positions you won’t be able to once you have to pay that franchise-level QB.

So, yeah, cleaning your cap sheet up, finding a top prospect at QB, and going from there is technically only a two-year process. If you have competent management, solid coaching, and the NFL Draft pool isn’t total crap, then the formula is already in place for how you turn things around. You can also tweak the formula in rare cases by going with a Lions approach where you take a chance on a Goff to secure extra draft capital (a rare win-win trade as the Rams won a Super Bowl with Stafford, and the Lions ultimately got Jameson Williams, Sam LaPorta, and Jahmyr Gibbs with the picks they got from the Rams).

Between the salary cap, the NFL Draft, and the lack of guaranteed money in contracts, NFL teams can only ever hurt themselves so much, and this is why it’s so impressive the Jets have not even been able to make the playoffs in 14 years — it should basically be impossible to go that long unless you have awful luck and truly incompetent management.

And yet none of that sells me on why the Browns and Eagles have only eight points of difference between their overall team ratings. The reality is the Madden Ratings Adjusters sit on a throne of lies.

Individual Ratings Make Up Team Overalls, So Let’s Address That For A Moment

I’ll be the first to say I’m not entirely sure what makes up the team overall rating in Madden. I don’t think it’s a straight average of every player on a team because certain positions carry more weight than others, but obviously the team ratings are a weighted summary of the individual player ratings at various positions.

However, to point at those individual ratings, we have to assume the gameplay was designed to play nice with a smaller range of ratings rather than the full 1-99 scale, otherwise it would be true cowardice to not use that full scale. But if we give the benefit of the doubt and say a 1 rating in throw power turns it into a Jon Bois Breaking Madden special, I’ll accept that fact while simultaneously saying you need to make the lower-end numbers usable or otherwise stop pretending you have a 1-99 scale.

Emory Jones is the worst QB in franchise mode (on a team), and he’s at a 51 overall. Math experts out there probably realize this means we’re only using half the 99 OVR scale. To me, this means either the game can’t handle Emory Jones being a 10 overall, or the Madden Ratings Adjusters have a limit to the criticism they’re ready to handle from real players and teams.

Yes, Emory Jones is better than I’ll ever be at QB, but judged by his peers, are we sure he’s only a 51 to Josh Allen’s 99? This is not an NHL, EA FC, MLB, or NBA video game where you have to factor in lower leagues or super young players in juniors. Madden only has NFL players in it. If you’re a 1 overall in Madden, you would still be better than most people at football, but you’d be the worst player in the NFL (which is still an amazing accomplishment!). For whatever reason, the Madden team does not go down that road.

If I peel the onion back another layer, well, we can say overalls don’t matter anyway, it’s really more about the individual ratings at a position. This is true, so let’s look at throw power:

The QB with the worst throw power (on a roster) in Madden is Logan Woodside with 79 throw power. Oh, well that’s even worse than the overall ratings in terms of the amount of the scale being used. I’m sure this is designed to work this way in part because every player gets a rating in every category and so a tight end will have way lower throw power, but that’s silly. If an individual rating is irrelevant for a specific position, then it shouldn’t impact how much of the scale gets used for the position where it matters way more. It’s not challenging to increase individual ratings in franchise mode, and so the downside of 79 throw power is not significant enough.

I don’t want to go too deep down this rabbit hole because it’s not the point of today’s newsletter, but we know certain individual ratings matter way more than others, but even the fun of that is sucked out of the whole process when the scale is this compressed.

Here’s the final example I’ll use before moving on:

Joe Milton III has the best throw power in the game at 99. He beats out the superstars at the position and is rocking a 71 overall rating. If you’ve seen any preseason action, you probably have a bone to pick with that 71 overall (see: this GIF for the accurate way the rating should go), but the point is he’s viable as a QB option in franchise mode because of that throw power — and because the other ratings aren’t terrible enough elsewhere. But even some of the joy of building around a Milton is somewhat neutralized when he’s already a 71 overall and ultimately any QB can be a franchise QB in this game because everything is made up and the points don’t matter.

And so if I’m being charitable, I understand that gameplay systems built on numbers are perhaps only built to handle certain ranges, but you can see how this impacts franchise mode at an individual player level, which then funnels up and creates a situation where all these teams are mashed into the same 10-point OVR scale.

Team Ratings Break The Formula For Franchise Mode Fans

In essence, what I’m talking about today is more existential than nitty gritty. Maybe I got a little specific with the individual ratings, but the point remains that the ratings impact a formula that we already know works: lower-rated teams are fun to rebuild if their numbers are way lower.

People will sometimes say a movie or show is too formulaic, and I don’t like a criticism like that on its own because most stories have been told, and the formulas that exist in storytelling exist because they work. Star Wars wasn’t Star Wars because it invented a whole new genre. It was Star Wars because of how it put all the existing pieces together within the fantasy/sci-fi genre.

When a movie or show fails, the problem is usually that the plot and story fell flat and the characters themselves were not interesting enough to save the premise. The execution, not the formula, was the problem. The issue here is we don’t get to be the storyteller trying to fit those puzzle pieces together within the well worn franchise mode rebuild genre. We don’t get the chance to be formulaic.

Every team is split into the Championship Contender/Playoff Hopeful/Rebuilding buckets, and the overall ratings are mashed between 78 and 88 overall. How can we even do the rebuilding formula/plot line/story with these sorts of limiting factors?

The formula (or plot) for a good franchise mode rebuild in a video game is you suck or tear it all down while losing a whole lot of games. You then draft well, make smart trades, and hopefully over multiple years you slowly build yourself up into a powerhouse. Along the way, the story of your franchise unfolds as you create these memories or moments where something important happens that changes the whole direction of your franchise. Whether that’s an injury, a big trade, a last-second bomb, or losing a key player to free agency is TBD — and that’s where the systems in the franchise mode help to accentuate or hurt your experience.

But if I pick up the Browns tomorrow, I can go out and compete with Joe Flacco and my 78 overall team and probably put up a good fight while not needing to worry too much about cap issues or anything else in the long term because Madden doesn’t really try to nail all the salary cap nuances either. In other words, the framework is rotten, and the house being built on that plot of video game land is cooked.

It stings the nostrils because it stinks to boot up and not see a 50 or 40 overall next to any team. “Line goes up” is what we want a franchise rebuild to be about, but there’s no true payoff when the line is already at a 78 overall. If anything, this is where College Football understands the assignment way better (and even there most of us would say it’s still too easy) by having one-star programs, lower recruiting hours, and smaller pools of players to recruit while being a 60 OVR school battling 90+ OVR teams. And don’t tell me “well that’s because there are more teams and the players are worse in college football” — NO! that’s not good enough. A 1 overall deserves the same respect as a 99 overall, otherwise stop pretending numbers go below a certain threshold in these games.

Bottom Line

I love an honorable QB, someone who will throw a hole shot down the sideline against a Cover 2 or rip a seam ball at a Cover 3 rather than take the checkdown. Give me Cam Ward over Captain Checkdowns all day because there is a respect attached to that level of unbridled confidence. It might not always be the best way to win (I draw the line at Jameis), but I trust that QB to take me further than one who is always risk-averse.

Right now, Madden team ratings are risk-averse and sheer cowardice. They are the Captain Checkdowns of sports ratings. There would be an honor to saying “no, the Browns stink, they’re getting a 25 overall, deal with it" even if they do have some good players. You’re not going anywhere with this Browns roster, and the team ratings should say as much because then it would be fun to rebuild them. It might be a little miserable at times at the start, but in the long run, it’d be fun.

It’s so easy to progress players in Madden unless you put serious guardrails on the experience, so a team would not even stay at a 25 or 50 overall for very long anyway. Madden should expand the franchise “status” outcomes beyond the Playoff Hopeful/Championship Contender/Rebuilding ones and give us a much wider ranger of individual and team ratings, because without them it’s only hurting our ability to create memorable stories in franchise mode.

Until next time y’all. And, as always, thanks for reading.

-Chase