The road to the Super Bowl may look similar for all 32 teams as they approach the 2022 season, but their individual trips are bound to be wildly different. Some will get completely lost on the QB carousel just a few weeks after setting out. Others will fall behind gradually with losing streaks until they eventually have no shot at catching up to the front-runners. A handful will get run off the road by better opponents during the stretch run (hopefully in some playoff games just as entertaining as last year), until finally one will be left standing at the finish line. With the imminent arrival of Madden 23 and the inevitable launching of millions of franchise saves by anxious players, there are decisions that need to be made by everyone about which team they will be riding with to get to the Big Dance.
When considering a franchise team, however, it’s not only the prospect of this season that must be factored into your choice, as it’s necessary to look at the team’s contracts, aging veterans, and promising young rookies to better inform how your team might look in five years or so. With that in mind, let’s comb through a few groups of teams that are likely to be the easiest, hardest, and most intriguing ones to lead into an always uncertain future in Madden 23 franchise mode.
The Easy Road
Kansas City Chiefs
Any conversation about which team you would like to control over the course of several seasons has to start with one where the quarterback situation is squared away, and it’s hard to find a more solid foundation than Patrick Mahomes. He’s young, quick, makes circus throws and, perhaps most importantly from a franchise perspective, he’s locked up by the Chiefs until 2032. He may have lost a formidable weapon during the offseason in Tyreek Hill, and Travis Kelce isn’t getting any younger either, but part of the fun of doing a Chiefs franchise will be acquiring new toys for Mahomes to play with over the course of his career.
The biggest challenge is likely to always be building a respectable defense while working around the Mahomes contract and whatever supporting cast you assemble around him.
Buffalo Bills
Everything that was stated above about the stability that having a quarterback like Mahomes brings to a franchise is just as true when it comes to Josh Allen and the Bills. Though Allen’s current deal might not be quite as long as the one that ties Mahomes to Kansas City (Allen’s contract is only through 2028), it’s unlikely that you’ll even play enough seasons for that to be a concern and, if you do, you at least won’t have to worry about your QB for years.
On the defensive side of the ball, the addition of Von Miller and the return of Shaq Lawson could bring a spark, but an infusion of young talent should be considered a priority to avoid any more of those wild shootouts like the one that ended their season last year. Maybe find some players who can stop Mahomes from getting in scoring position in 13 seconds?
Cincinnati Bengals
The Bengals don’t offer quite the same security as the Chiefs and Bills because a looming decision still needs to be made on what kind of monster long-term deal will be handed out in order to keep Joe Burrow. In the meantime, there’s a small window where Burrow and his familiar wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase can wreak havoc on affordable rookie deals while you plot how to use those savings elsewhere on the roster.
A good place to start might be with investing in an offensive line that can keep Burrow upright long enough to deliver the ball to Chase and others.
Los Angeles Rams
There are a lot of reasons why the Rams were the Super Bowl champions last year, and a few key ones will need to continue to produce for you if you want to be able to succeed. That’s because quarterback Matthew Stafford, wide receiver Cooper Kupp, defensive tackle Aaron Donald, edge rusher Leonard Floyd, and cornerback Jalen Ramsey will account for about half the 2023 salary cap.
This makes it vital that you draft well enough to be able to plug in young players on cheap contracts into roles where they can contribute immediately (we’ll ignore that they don’t have their 2023 first-round pick in real life).
Los Angeles Chargers
If you’re partial to the other team in Los Angeles, the Chargers appear to have found a winner in quarterback Justin Herbert, and he will soon command the same kind of lucrative long-term contract that Burrow wants — and Mahomes and Allen already received. There’s a lot of talent on the roster that might be able to get you to the promised land in the next couple of years if you’re able to emerge from a difficult division. If not, there will be hard decisions to make about what to do with expensive game-changers like Keenan Allen, Derwin James, and Joey Bosa.
The Hard Road
New York Giants
As a Giants fan, it gives me no pleasure to report that their roster currently has a lot of question marks and might need a complete overhaul in the next few years. On offense, it still remains to be seen whether Daniel Jones is a legitimate option at quarterback going forward, and if Saquon Barkley has suffered too many injuries at this point to recapture the same burst he had coming out of college.
Defensively, the team will need to find its identity, and this will likely require the addition of more young players like Kayvon Thibodeaux through the draft or in free agency.
Chicago Bears
After just suffering through a Mitch Trubisky era that never really got started, you’ll find yourself as the Bears staring down strong indicators that Justin Fields might not be the answer at the position either. It also doesn’t help that Fields lacks playmakers around him. So you’ll likely want to start your regime by targeting guys who are able to produce without the need for precision downfield passes.
Seattle Seahawks
Life after Russell Wilson seems pretty bleak when there’s an ongoing quarterback competition at training camp between Drew Lock and Geno Smith for the starting job. To climb back into relevance in a stacked NFC West, the top item on the to-do list has to be to find someone (*cough* Jimmy Garoppolo *cough*) who can put the ball in the hands of the dynamic duo of DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett.
If you can step in for Pete Carroll and re-shape the secondary into a new incarnation of the Legion of Boom, it will be possible to climb out of the bottom of the division sooner rather than later.
Atlanta Falcons
Taking over the Falcons at this point is as difficult a task as you’re going to inherit as a GM in a video game or in real life. The job starts with finding a viable option at quarterback in the post-Matt Ryan era, unless you happen to consider Marcus Mariota or rookie Desmond Ridder to be someone you can build an offense around. The Falcons also still have some bad contracts left over from when they were last Super Bowl contenders, with linebacker Deion Jones probably being the best example of a player not performing up to what they make.
Houston Texans
Where once there was plenty of optimism in Houston with Deshaun Watson under center, that’s been replaced with a lot of uncertainty as Davis Mills instead tries to prove himself as starting quarterback in the league after some positive signs last year. As the Texans, you’ll be hampered this year by the fact that just under a quarter of their salary cap is being devoted to dead money, but there will be some space to make some moves come 2023. Embrace the freedom of the rebuild and mold your kind of team from the ground up.
The Intriguing Road
Las Vegas Raiders
How can you not want to take the reins of an offense that will allow you to fling the ball around as Derek Carr to such talents as Davante Adams and Darren Waller? That will have to be the focal point of your offense in the short term at least since the Raiders weren’t very good at running the football last season and didn’t do much in the offseason to remedy that problem.
Still, defense will be fun as you’ll have some fearsome pass rushers at your disposal with Maxx Crosby and the newly acquired Chandler Jones.
Carolina Panthers
This is the team to choose if you’re a sucker for a good love triangle because you’ll be given the opportunity to see what quarterbacks Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield have to offer before deciding which of them you can see yourself with in the future (it might be neither as well). Once you do settle on a QB, there’s bound to be lots of scoring with a roster that will allow you to get the ball to Christian McCaffrey and throw to the receiving duo of Robbie Anderson and D.J. Moore.
Cleveland Browns
You can be the one to deal with the aftermath of the Deshaun Watson debacle without having to cope with the real-life pressures of a tense situation or the consequences of a whatever-game suspension. Instead, you can concentrate on bolstering a solid core that includes Myles Garrett on defense and Nick Chubb toting the rock by maybe finding someone else to catch passes from Watson alongside Amari Cooper.
San Francisco 49ers
With every indication being that the 49ers are moving on from quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo to the raw but promising Trey Lance, this is about as intriguing a situation in the NFL as you can find. Taking control of Lance likely means sacrificing some accuracy for some speed to run the ball when needed during games, which might suit some people better anyway.
Having a Swiss Army knife like Deebo Samuel and a defense anchored by Nick Bosa should allow you to manage the game as Lance until he finds his footing and increases his ratings.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
There’s always the added intrigue when you take control of the Bucs right now knowing that the end of Tom Brady’s career will have to come sometime soon, but you just never know exactly when his counterpart in the game will decide to call it a career (or try to skip off to Miami again). While the black cloud of a quarterback search hangs ominously in the air, you can take comfort in the fact that the Bucs’ roster is built to win now and has enough young talent on both sides of the ball to keep things rolling when Brady is gone.
