Improve Franchise Mode
Franchise mode was first introduced in "Madden 99," and it gave you the chance to become GM of your team for 15 years and do things like participate in the NFL draft, sign/re-sign free agents and trade players/have trades offered to you.
Hold on, you now had the ability to:
1.) Run an NFL Draft
2.) Sign/re-sign free agents
3.) Trade players/have trades offered to you
One more time:
1.) Run an NFL Draft
2.) Sign/re-sign free agents
3.) Trade players/have trades offered to you
This was a breakthrough for the game in 1998, so by now, you would think Franchise had become unhealthily addicting. Unfortunately, it hasn't. In fact, "Madden 11," barely had any tweaks/improvements from previous versions. But what gives me hope that a mode with so much potential will now be the game's most attractive option in "Madden 12" (outside of online play) is the reportedly vast overhaul EA developers have given it this season.
Bring Back Owner Mode
Owner mode was introduced in "Madden 2004," and was just what it sounds like. You took control of every aspect of a franchise, with the ability to do things such as relocate your team, build/upgrade your stadium and set the prices of tickets/merchandise/food, among other things. If you weren't able to turn a profit after three years, you were "fired" from your position.
A favorite of mine was using a team like the Lions and seeing if I could take over the mess Matt Millen created in the real world and fix it in the virtual world. Two things stand out from that:
1.) To give you a sense of the shape this franchise was in, here were the five highest paid Lions in that game (in descending order):
- Charles Rogers
- Joey Harrington
- Dre Bly
- Az-Zahir Hakim
- Ty Detmer (Detroit's then third-string quarterback)
Rogers/Harrington were on their rookie contracts, but is it a good sign when these are the five highest players on the team? ... No!!!!
2.) That I actually got out my old XBox and checked who the highest-paid players were for Detroit in "Madden 2004."
Anyway, I fully support the return of owner mode in any form. The pressure of "win in three years or you're out" was always a fun concept. Here are the three teams I would take over and try to virtually rebuild if it ever came back:
1.) Washington Redskins. The quarterback this year will be John Beck or Rex Grossman. My God.
2.) Cincinnati Bengals. Somehow, a team that would have also appeared had this list been written in 2004, appears in 2011.
3.) Buffalo Bills. It's almost hard to not have a franchise quarterback for this long.
Pressure-Packed Situations
These are the little things that would add a sense of realism to the game. Kind of like how in basketball games the controller vibrates when you're on the road and at the free-throw line. Each team's coach would have a different "clutch" rating. (The problem would be assigning this to new coaches. What would you do for first-year coaches like Tennessee's Mike Munchak or Cleveland's Pat Shurmur)?
Game Presentation
I loved how in last year's "Madden" there was a unique presentation for all 32 teams if you won the Super Bowl. For example, if Dallas won, Gus Johnson would mention how it's the Cowboys' sixth Super Bowl to tie them with the Steelers. Or, if the Browns won, Johnson would mention how a team from Cleveland won a professional sports championship, meaning there's a good chance the world will end.
There would be the Gatorade bath. The visit to the White House. The quarterback holding up the team jersey with President Obama.
But the problem is that every game other than the Super Bowl is treated exactly the same. When you play in the divisonal round of the playoffs, there is not even a single mention by the announcers that it is a playoff game. The pregame comments for a playoff game are the exact same as the pregame for a Week 3 game. Awful.
