Protection kinda sucked first series. Not in the way it usually does, by giving up vs. pass rush moves but by letting free blitzers come home. Seems like they aren’t good against the disguised blitzes. Coaching issue.

First series on defense and it seems the Rams have identified our weakness against the run, Larry O is just getting pushed, 2nd run play is embarrassing for him
-Coming back to this a little later, he is REALLY bad in this game. Worst I’ve seen him all year against the run…He does improve and make a few nice plays later. Must have got yelled at.

Our Linebackers are not great at crossing the face of blockers (talking Holcomb and Alexander)

Rams did an amazing job of neutralizing Watt on the pass rush with chip blocks (it’s what every team has done) I do feel like the Steelers might be better off trying to move him around or generating pressure based on him taking that chip block every play
-for example, you can have TJ take the chip and just bury the guy in the dirt (man cover that dude basically freeing up someone else), can overload the other side since the tackle will be looking at him.
-Or simply just have TJ move alignment before the snap to rush anywhere else
-I’d like to see if he could ghost technique a guard. Line up him and Herbig on one side and let them both try ghost outside moves over the tackle and guard. Have a 1 tech and LB distract the center and guard the other way
(I will say TJ did switch spots a couple plays this game, but he still got chipped lol)

2nd series on offense, first run play has pulling blockers…nice. Got a good gain (as Najee fumbled it lol) But this is exactly what they needed to run last game when they tried to use zone blocking too often.

I will say the run came from a compressed form right away but they didn’t do as much of this like they had in previous weeks. Canada’s getting better folks. AND this run came from shotgun compressed instead of always under center compressed like we’ve seen and complained about before.

2nd run is an under center zone run…no gain. COME ON.

Najee needs to get tutelage from Le’Veon Bell, he gets too happy and bounces outside. Brutal one from this second series. Learn to hesitate if you must and stick the head forward, bouncing is for Barry Sanders, you are not Barry Sanders.
-Or, just run full speed at the line and let God sort out the rest. You’re a power back, act like it.

I know we know this but it bears repeating, Kwon Alexander is bad against the run. I know Elandon Roberts is the dude for that but I feel like Elandon against the run is a bigger upgrade that I’ll take his loss of pass just to get that thumper on the field. The Rams are bullying the inside of the Steelers defense early.

The Steelers are playing a lot of man coverage against these Rams compressed sets. Any Madden player can tell you that compression and bunch are man killers with the rubs and releases you can get out of them. Surprised Steelers came to this game with that as their scheme vs. a more zone or match based scheme since match is how a lot of teams combat the tightness.

The Evolution of Matt Canada
1st play of the series after a Rams punt
Tight set, under center…oh crap here comes the run again
But wait
It’s a playaction
Rollout, perfection
Diontae on the comeback, gets a yard of separation
Kenny throws the ball a yard off, incompletion
Good play call though
I’m here for it

(they used a similar play action rollout later to great success)

It is amazing watching a great interior vs. a great edge. Rams had really bad edges and therefore we didn’t hear much about our tackles being bad but watching Donald make Seumalo look terrible is interesting.
Like Mason Cole we know is bad and he puts it on film every week. But Seumalo up to this game was doing fine (after the SF game)
But seeing a generational DT, even an undersized one blow him up and back is kinda crazy vs. what we had seen before this.

I will say our interior did play decent enough against Donald, he dominated the blockers at times but overall didn’t take over the game like he has in the past.

The theory of the Steelers offensive line right now (b/c for some reason we aren’t playing Broderick Jones) goes like this: They are completely average to below average with below average coaching as evidenced by blitz pickups. When they face average to below average talent they look fine. When they face anyone good they look terrible.
There isn’t a rock as you call it. Like SF has a below average o-line but they have a rock (when he’s back healthy) and that’s a lot easier to scheme with than no rocks.

Steelers scramble drill against man coverage is well below average, these dudes need to get that dawg in them. On scrambles it looks like only Kenny and the defense are running hard.

I feel like I make this note every week but I will keep doing it until Benton gets more playing time. He is sooooo good right now. And for some reason he only played 28% of the snaps.
-I feel like when Cam Heyward comes back it should be Benton and him as one DT pairing then keep Adams and Larry O together. That’ll be a solid rotation. If they cut back on Benton’s reps when Heyward is back I will be very disappointed.

Almost had the full Wisconsin d-line on Herbig’s first career sack. Just need to have that bum Loudermilk out there for a play with Watt, Herbig and Benton to get the full line.

Levi Wallace…Please play someone else Tomlin.

Larry O and Adams, our main interior d-linemen. I am so conflicted watching them. At times they make such nice plays and then they look like they don’t belong at DT at others, getting pushed back and separated from the line of scrimmage.

I think one of Kenny’s problems is his looking off from his reads too quick and checking down. Some guys he looks away right as they’re about to come open. He needs better anticipation, a problem I’ve seen a few times this year. I think it’ll improve with time and with an O-line he trusts. He started this year under fire from the 49ers and Browns that it makes sense he thinks he’s about to get hit every rep back there in the pocket.

It almost feels like Pickett doesn’t trust the windows in the middle of the field sometimes. There will be guys open that it looks like he’s looking at but he doesn’t throw it. Other times he does bullet it in there. Again, this might get better with experience.

Steelers offensive line looked a lot better at the end of the game with pass pro and run lanes. Strangely enough they started pulling more players and down blocking…huh some blog out there recommended they do that more in the previous few weeks. Glad the Steelers can self scout cause ain’t no one reading this…I can say whatever I want! weiner!

Again I just jot things down as I see them so if it there are parts that make no sense, I make no apologies.

dude can we never call stick again, or at least limit it to only a couple times a game
dude can we get Loudermilk off the field? (coming back to this at the end of the game he might not have played another rep lol)

I like Keanu Neal
Mark Robinson had some nice reps (I like him more than Alexander, just cause Alexander isn’t putting much on tape and I want to see the young guy more)

Our LBs are good at covering grass, Alexander and Holcomb

Levi Wallace should forever be matched up in coverage against Tight Ends, he just isn’t athletic enough against WRs, might be a solid nickel and Steelers should think about having him there going forward.

Steelers look a lot better in man/man press than zone
-Just play two man press with 4 rushers FOREVER

Keep moving the pocket on offense please
-use play action too

I feel like Canada stopped calling the plays after the first few drives lol
-there are true American plays (at times, watching longer…eh…it’s still Canada)

Mason Cole is definition of mid

Najee had some decent runs, the stories of his downfall have been greatly exaggerated

We got to stop being so predictable on 3rds. We just run stop routes at the stick, not really great against man coverage that people are using there.

What really stands out to me on film is the absolute dogshit run scheme, even when we have guys blocked there are just too many defenders right at the line of scrimmage to do much against
-figure it out Canada, steal some plays from Miami if you need to
-spread out the defense, you don’t need all your blockers in the box when you run, it actually makes it harder

Pickens needs more routes when one on one than go or stop route, run some deep ins please

Just watched a run out of shotgun go for like 15 yards, please more of that inside zone stuff
-next play was a bunch of stop routes lol
-next play was a shotgun run where we had our entire o close to the ball, no gain against a stacked box

When I first saw them run a mesh concept I nearly shed a tear (it was on Kenny’s long run that got called back because Pickens is sloppy pre-snap)
-but why was it a mesh with the TE on a stop route instead of a post/corner? Stop routes aren’t good against man
-Kenny is also a decently mobile QB, he needs to be used more that way
–remember when Canada said his scheme needs a mobile QB when talking about Ben, so that was a lie

2nd time running mesh! Another 30 yard gain!

(these were the only two mesh concepts the whole game IIRC)

I need Kenny to throw more post/crosser patterns, also corners

need more motion (and not just on run plays)

Every time I see a WR/TE stop right next to a LB in the middle of the field I want to punch my computer monitor

Kenny bails out the pocket way too much. I don’t blame him after the first two weeks but he needs to realize he has time against the Raiders

“The Drive” – the only good offensive playcall series of the entire game happened in the 3rd quarter
1st play – play action to suck down LBs, hit the post/slant over the middle to Pickens for like 20 yards
2nd play – misdirection run, 5 yards or so
3rd play – play action screen – 20 yards
4th play – drag/stop route the “Canada” – actually completed, crazy
5th play – Najee inside zone at a light box – 17 yards
6th play – Play action Muth corner route TD

Crazy things happen when they don’t make it easy on the defense. Ridiculous that they don’t PA more out of heavy sets like the TD and run more out of light sets like the Najee inside zone.

I’d like to see TJ get a bit more rotation, could see he was tired at times on the rush, no reason not to when our pass rushing depth is so good (want to see more Herbig)

Benton on 3 plays close to each other went sack, got held then forced another sack with his push

After “The Drive” we went right back to a Canada offense of telegraphed runs and stick routes OMEGALOL

Montravius Adams got that dawg in him. He’s not the most talented DT I’ve ever seen but man does he hustle.

I feel like the Steelers lack a true nose tackle and that sometimes hurts them

Kenny Pickett still has major issues reading the field

I watch the all-22 and made notes on the Steelers. Instead of letting it sit in my computer I thought I’d put them here in case ya’ll want to see them

almost no play action
-remember that long play to Pickens? That was our only (or only 1 of very few) play action I remember (I could have just missed other ones, I didn’t pay attention to them particularly)
–no PA allowed LBs to flow to the ball by Cle super fast, killed the run game, and the pass game

Very limited chip blocks on the edge, Cle ran a chip on Watt a bunch of times
-For example, we chip the edges, Kenny time in pocket, 30 yard gain to Pickens on one of the only times we did it
-move the pocket, Kenny looks better
–we kept doing straight drops and got almost no time b/c o-line sucks

Kenny had trouble make reads and being accurate. I’m really surprised he’s playing this bad

What happened to our downfield passing game down the sidelines to Pickens?!?!

It felt like most of our runs happened out of tight or heavy sets, allowing Cle to pack the field, penetrate and dominate downhill
-run out of spread more is the solution

Best misdirection was the play to Warren on pass where he went from one side in shotgun, a pick was thrown against man coveage by the WRs on the other and he went for like 40 yards

didn’t attack the middle/deep middle enough against the invert cover 2 (outside of Pickens) (or sidelines against the normal cover 2)

Player thoughts
Montravious Adams, okay, gets tossed in the run
Larry O, great pass rushing
Benton 2nd best interior RN behind Larry O, (try to get Benton more 1 on 1s)
A Watts should play a little more than Adams
Leal has been okay at best but a bit of a disappointment
I like Keanu Neal, a little more than Kazee at ss
Sullivan, lets hope Desmond King plays soon
JPJ should be starting instead of slow Levi Wallace, he didn’t even try on the long Ford run
Holcomb played better here than against the 49ers, haven’t seen anything super special yet though. Seems a little slow to read plays
Roberts is real nice against the run, reading and going, sometimes lost in the wash though and a little on the less athletic side
Kwan Alexander looks to be the best in coverage(ish), that boneheaded 3rd down conversion to the sideline in zone near the end was bad. him and roberts rotating is a good idea (like they’ve been doing)
Watt+Highsmith and the rest of the edge rotation is great

Seumalo just might be trash at left guard, should find a way to get him back at RG either on our team or anothers
Our o-line might just be the worst I’ve seen it, which is weird that it’s worse than last year when it was basically the same group
-bring back mike munchak
WRs are fine
Jalen Warren looked good, Najee not as much even though he had a couple of okay runs. There’s just no running room with this O
Pickett is really bad right now

oh yeah, Gunnar’s mental mistake on special teams should get him cut off the roster

Release date of August 23rd. Madden 16 was August 25th.

Play it 5 days early with EA Access on Xbox One

We need to care who’s on the cover because influences the game. I wanted a defensive player like Von Miller on the cover because usually they focus on gameplay for the guy who’s on the cover and pass rushing with the pocket forming needs serious help.

But let’s move forward

Expect a bigger focus on the size of the player making a difference. It’s a fine line between stats and a players height and weight as to what a player does. I don’t know how they’ll re-do trucking, tackling and hit stick but it would only make sense they do something so a 220 back with 99 trucking can’t truck stick a 340 pound Damon Harrison.

They said in their blog which I’ll link below that different player sizes now will allow different animations. I like this development because for years and especially in 16 we’ve heard a lot of people complain about animations. The biggest being how any WR can replicate Odell’s famous leaning back catch.

But going into 17 it seems they upped the running game. It was said that if you put the difficulty on Rookie the game will do it for you. They took the biggest complaint this year in the passing game, the pre-determined animations on aggressive catches and put in into another facet of the game. I fear the game is turning more and more into a Metal Gear Solid cut scene with quick time events taking place between picking plays, taking a lot of the control away from players.

You know I’ve always wanted a proper football simulation similar to “Football Manager” on the PC for Soccer. But I never thought Madden would turn into that simulation.

Now I’m not an expert on game design, but what I think makes a good game is something that I feel I have complete control over the avatar and that my moves on the controller quickly and faithfully are replicated on field. If a system comes in with new “Path Assist” that helps me navigate and anticipate downfield, I worry that it could take some control away from me and move me randomly towards a hole I wasn’t planning on going.

You know the most frustrating part of Madden on defense for me is? It’s when you are holding down Y because you want to intercept passes and the game takes control of your player away from you when you aren’t even near the ball to intercept it. You do a stumbling animation like you just hopped off the drunk bus at full speed in college.

This is what I worry the new Path Assist will become. And you might say, turn it off, do it yourself. But what if it’s like the other assists Madden has where it’s just more effective than manual moving because of the animations you get with the assists? Say I could read holes and run like Problem Wright with the assists on. Why not play with it on? I guess we’ll see if it’s any good but why would EA put it in the game if it isn’t any good? They don’t introduce mechanics for us to ignore them.

I may be a little harsh there with the criticism, but a lot of the hard core players want full control over their players on the field and not to feel like every interaction comes down to a Random Number Generator in the game deciding their fate.

But let’s move on.

They talk in the blog about the spin and juke and how the elusiveness of the smaller guys will have them play a lot different than the big guys like gronk who truck over dudes and stiff arm them. Then we get a cinematic of gronk spinning and juking around tackles.

But the hurdle looks sweet. That’s something bigger guys definitely do because smaller DBs almost always go for the ankles on large runners like TE’s and full backs. If Madden 17 is able to make it where a 180 pound DB can’t take down Gronk without going low, the hurdle is back baby! Can’t wait.

Again, it’ll all come down to how Madden balances things. These could either be issues or non-starters because of how well they are balanced. My guess is that something is going to be overpowered at the beginning of the year and they’ll have to adjust the sliders a few weeks in.

Also talked about in the blog is gap play and improved zone coverages. And for you man children out there like me, no, gap play is not when you hide from your mom in the clothes racks at The Gap.

But I’m very excited about these changes. If you don’t know what football Gap play is, it’s where each defender is assigned a gap to defend against the run. I wonder if they’ll be able to properly create 2 gap run defenders like some teams run. You don’t see it as much in today’s NFL but Nose Tackles are usually responsible for 2 gaps in a 3-4 if they are playing head up on the center.  So this is really neat, we’ll see how the run game plays next year with that and force defenders setting the edge like they are assigned in real life.

And I guess that leads me into my next point of pass defense and pass rush. So with these new force defenders setting the edge on runs we can expect them to drive the outside shoulder of the tackle. I hope this means against the pass a proper pocket is formed where speed rushers try and run around offensive tackles to get to the QB. In Madden 16, if you don’t have QB contains on, guys can easily drop back 10 yards and scramble around edges. You don’t see that as much in the NFL because QBs sit in the pocket that is formed by speed rushers trying to get around the edge and the tackles trying to push them wide. If you see an NFL QB taking more than a 5 or 7 step drop, they’ll get killed by edge rushers running right around the tackles.

But count me as optimistic that we’ll see some improvements on it next year. They didn’t specifically mention that they are trying to create a more realistic pocket, but that doesn’t mean we won’t get it.

Next, another area they said they are looking at is Zone coverages. They are adding 8 new zone concepts never before seen in Madden. Now I’m not sure what these zones are so I can’t really talk about them. But I think what people want is for defenders to act smarter to routes coming through their zones. Like if a safety is in a deep blue, don’t let a long developing shot play get behind you. And that’s exactly what they say next, defenders will have more awareness and threats to each zone and can pattern match receivers. This is what I’m pumped about. No longer will you have a guy acting stupid if you put him in a purple and the corner route just goes a bit too deep for him. I hope he can recognize the pattern and stay with it. It’ll be interesting to see how play rec and awareness factors into the game next year and if low end guys will still forget how to cover corners like almost all of them do in 16.

Next, they said they focused on special teams with icing the kicker which was a feature in NCAA. Unfortunately studies have shown no effect on a kicker after a timeout. What they should have focused on was punting and how the ball always rolls forward like it’s a round basketball instead of a funky shaped abject that bounces around like a drunk on the dance floor. Maybe a rugby style kick and pooch punt will be in 17. Maybe, although I doubt anyone would notice changes to the punting game because no one in Madden punts.

In the trailer, the first scene is a fake field goal and they even talk about new special team fakes. Fake field goals don’t happen much in real life and if they happen a bunch in Madden people are gonna bitch. So I talked earlier about how they don’t add features for us to ignore. I really hope this is a feature people ignore. If fake field goals make big impact on gameplay it’s a mistake for Madden.

And since we can’t block field goals without getting kicked out of official EA tournaments, as they’ve posted, why even come out in a field goal set? Just come out in base defenses to stop it.

And as to the overall large re-vamp of special teams, I really couldn’t care less. Nobody picks up a football game to play special teams. Special teams to football is like yard work to home ownership, it’s a necessary evil when playing games. I liked that kicks were automatic as nobody likes kickers deciding games or really anything involved with that part of football.

Competitive Madden 17 – They didn’t mention it. I’m hoping we get a better ladder in MUT and season structure for salary cap mode. I’m not going to talk about this as I’ve mentioned it before in videos and have put out a video on what I want improved in Madden 17 already.

Connected franchise mode. They said they are putting a focus on it for 17. I’m cautiously optimistic about what that means. Do we get a better story for our players that we pick like NBA 2k or is the draft and owner mode being updated? Maybe both but only time will tell. They’ve bragged about CFM improvements for years and only slight improvements or side-provements as I like to call it have happened because I like to make up words.

Armsleves and other aesthetics. -I know it’s important to get things right but the feedback I’ve seen online, there are some people who just bitch and bitch about it. I’ve seen hundreds of comments on it. Seriously guys, if you want to dress men in different clothes, go buy a ken doll. Gameplay and features are number 1 in Madden.

Loyalty rewards – Just get MHC since you can sell them for coins. You won’t be able to sell 85 overall Gronk but there is a set you can complete to give you a 90 overall gronk in Madden 16 and an 85 overall Gronk in Madden 15.

So overall I really love that the Madden developers are listening to the hardcore audience on what needs fixing and after reading the blog I am quite hyped about Madden 17 being the best one yet. Madden 16 was a very good improvement on 15 and let’s hope it keeps going in the future.

Before I start I’m going to say, read the blog linked below. The things I say won’t make a lot of sense unless you already have a grip on what this is going to be. Please go read the blog now.

My thoughts on Salary cap mode

It’s for the MUT Middle class. Because you need to own these players in your binder, the poor players who don’t have much time or coins won’t be able to get into a fair game right away like they are able to in Draft Champions.

It’s clear to me EA knows how to cater to different markets to bring in the entirety of the football loving world. Except females of course. But that’s because it’s football.

So the poor are catered to in draft champions, the rich in MUT and now the middle class with this mode.

And as to the rich, they will keep playing MUT. That is true unless they find themselves wanting to get into the competitive scene in Madden. As you guys have heard me talk about many times, this salary cap mode is the ultimate form of competitive madden. No Seahawks vs. Seahawks the entire tournament, no random luck deciding whether you get to pass the ball with John Elway or Mark Sanchez, you now get a more leveled playing field but with almost limitless customization. This is what competitive madden will be in the future. Or at least I pray. I talked about this more last year in my “Can Madden be a Competitive Esport video” which I’ll link below.

And I mention in that video about EA’s competitive sports division. I can totally see another big live event taking place this summer with this new mode. I would lube yourselves up and get ready to grind if you want to get in the tourney.

A couple more things mentioned in the blog. They mentioned that players will be given a salary cap number based on stats not overalls. First, as TexasBoy has mentioned plenty of times and now EA has confirmed, overalls don’t matter. Look at the underlying stats. I hope EA re-does their algorithm for overalls in 17 to match overalls to what they think actually matters in how players play on the field.

But this will be hella interesting to see what EA starts to rank more heavily. I’m guessing they are going to back off on awareness for some positions like RB and QB.

But the more they weight awareness or other meaningless stats, the better opportunity we have to find budget ballers for the mode. Stay tuned to the channel for more on finding these players and what EA is signaling for what matters more at different positions.

The thing that stood out to me was the seasons structure. It’s terrible. For something like draft champions where you want badges and rewards it works fine. But I want to see a little variety in my game modes. Not being able to change around the roster between games to fit a shifting meta is a bad idea from a game development standpoint. The great part about this mode is your ability to tinker with the rosters to find the right balance. You aren’t allowed to in draft champions for obvious reasons, since you play out your draft.

My solution is to implement a different ladder. I know I talk about Hearthstone a lot on this channel but they get a lot of things right. Since this looks like the competitive mode for Madden, have the ladder count down ranks from 50-1 with guys moving up and down based on wins and losses and then legend ranks after that where a Elo style ranking of guys would come in. EA could then transparently take the top 64 players in the legend rank at the end of the season for their tournament.

This solves my gripe because games will be played transparently against players near your rank and you can sub out guys between games. The rewards can be given out either per win or per milestone or both. Like 3000 yards passing in a season gets you a pro pack. And so on.

And, I understand the need to charge for the mode, to balance out the economy so that way you aren’t giving rewards out for free. I’m not going to offer any alternate solutions here like using the MUT contracts on players because I think that’s a bad idea, I think they should make it free because you are looking for a low barrier to entry to find the best players in Madden. We already have to buy the players and put them in our binders, that should be enough of an investment.

So, moving forward. What does this mean for MUT? Well, until we see the full inventory of players and what their salary cap numbers are it is hard to tell. Will this new mode cause a rise in the price of golds and elites? I don’t know. The budget ballers we have now won’t go up in price like we think. Cause EA said Za’darius Smith will now be priced according to his stats and not his overall.

But is the market flooded enough with high golds and base elite range players that they won’t take a huge bump with the new game mode? Only time will tell. I’m guessing this new demand for these players will cause a slight bump but it’ll be spread amongst so many different players that it’s going to be tough to make large profits. The best way to turn a buck is to find a mistake by EA in rating a player and buying a ton of that player.

But I assume with new players releasing through the summer that the cap numbers will adjust themselves relatively often. Maybe once a week? If they don’t re-adjust themselves we’ll run into long term issues with the program as the newer players generally have better stats like Speed. Since speed is OP, the newer cards will just be flat out better than the older ones. It isn’t as much an issue with madden 16 as there is only a little over 4 months of it left but moving into 17 I could see it being a bigger issue.

They can handle it one of three ways. The first two are to either reduce the old cards cost as the season goes along or raise the cap occasionally to fit in the new ones. Of those two I like raising the cap monthly as the season progresses the best.

The third option is to not adjust the cap at all through the season and let players figure it out themselves with the new cards. At this point I assume EA will go forward this way but that is speculation.

The biggest key to making coins off this new mode will be identifying if EA screwed up and isn’t weighing a key category enough or weighing it too much. Like Blockshed for CBs or on the other side, awareness for defensive players. I’ll be particularly interested in how they rank strength compared to base MUT. We’ll see how the BCA players turn out with that one.

And another point to be made is that it looks like positional worth has been taken into account so QBs cost more than Left ends and so on.

But 1,000 points divided by 34 spots means each player needs to average 29.4 points. High overall cards can easily double that or triple it for Golden ticket Johnny Manziel.

Roster breakdowns: 34 spots
QB1 – fine
HB1 – Only 1 HB, I know they turned down fatigue and injuries off but my god, you are almost forced into a backup here if you plan on running the ball even 50% of the time. And that’s a big bugaboo for me. They are essentially forcing us into it’s use like Call of duty modern warfare forced us into using juggernaut or stopping power perks to be competitive.
FB1 – Forget what I said, stash your HB 2 here. Unless you run in the I-form or strong close or HB dives/tosses on the goal line. What am I talking about. Of course you do. Time to freak out again by the lack of depth at HB.
WR – 4 of them. Solid depth. No complaints here.
TE – 2. Makes sense. But why more TE’s than HBs? I think a lot of players use HBs more than TEs. Seriously a pain in the ass there.
O-line – 1 of each. I’m fine with this decision. But I think Stamina will be underrated for this position.
1 LE and 2 RE, essentially 3 DEs. – Good decision
2 DTs. Fine
1 LOLB and 1 ROLB
2 MLBs.
4 CBs
1 FS
2 SS
1 k
1 P
2 Flex Players to use as you wish.

So 16 on defense and 14 on offense, 1 kicker and 1 punter. Interesting that they provide more depth on defense. I don’t have a problem with it though. The only thing I want is an HB2.

The biggest concern I have with this mode, as with any madden gameplay is the cheese. If you can custom pick your run blocking TEs and Tackles then I assume someone can cheese more effectively than draft champions. But that’ll be the meta. If everyone starts quick toss cheesing, people will bring better run stuffers. And if everyone brings run stoppers, you should bring speedy WRs to beat them deep.

But we’ll talk more though strategy at a later date because this video is getting lengthy and we’ll really need to dive into the weeds there. We’ll talk about player prices and how to construct and spend on your roster. This is like draft champions on steroids. Nice work EA. I love the new mode.

EA Blog: https://www.easports.com/madden-nfl/news/2016/mut-salary

Can Madden become a competitive E-Sport: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDOegIou45U