Madden NFL 22
With Coordinators Back for Madden 22, What Do You Want From Them?
Whether you want to call it a “leak” or just a nice little planned teaser by EA, it seems we are getting coordinators back in Madden 22 in the form of “staff management” and whatever that may include. Since that news broke back at the start of March, some folks on the forums have been thinking more about coordinators in the NFL game. The thing that has cracked me up the most is forum user TheButter peddling this one image over and over again in various threads:
I believe it’s an image from NFL Head Coach, but even if it’s not, NFL Head Coach has been one game that has popped up alongside the Coaching Carousel that was first introduced in NCAA Football 12 as potential ways to make coordinators a more important part of CFM. With that in mind, I just want to share some thoughts from the community here, and open up the thread to a wider audience so the brainstorming can continue.
Also, as always, if you just want to deep dive a whole slew of franchise mode desires (that also includes what to do with coordinators) always check out DeuceDouglas’ 23,000+word franchise mode blueprint complete with mock-ups galore.
NFL Coordinators Wishlist for Madden 22
Starting with the aforementioned TheButter to kick off the thread:
Why not add in a simple weekly staff meeting? It’d be text based, just like the head coach office in franchise now, and it’d bring emphasis to how important a good staff is in Madden.
They could talk about key players on the upcoming team, their big plays to watch for, how your team matches up, and who should start at their positions.
webbyjay82 does not really agree with the original idea above and others were relatively pessimistic about it on its own as well:
It would get repetitive and most people would just skip it because it wouldn’t make a huge difference.
feeq14 sort of summed up one side of the argument here for how to think about conceptualizing coordinators in Madden 22:
We only want to simulate the broad strokes of the coaching/franchise experience. Very few of us would ever want to put in the actual work of an NFL head coach.
Cory Levy pushed back a bit on the idea that Madden should only cater to one side or the other. Instead, the system should be more on the NFL Head Coach level, but you can toggle things on/off.
If people don’t want it, maybe it should be able to be toggled on and off, just like everything detailed in the game should be.
If there’s only one NFL licensed game in the video game market, it should be able to cater to players who want to sit through an hour or two between games, micromanaging their team, preparing for their opponent, etc. as well as players who want to only play the offensive snaps of their team and run through four games in an hour every time they play with little to no planning/playing outside of the actual games.
Madden should be as immersive as the player wants it to be.
ForUntoOblivionSoar tried to sort of find one more potential alternative to depth by just blowing out the offseason rather than bogging down week-to-week prep in certain respects:
But honestly, I’d prefer if things like player development and scheme foundations all be done in the off-season before the preseason, rather than weekly events. Player development can be done manually via OTAs/minicamp, and then experience at the end of the season can be added to that.
webbyjay82 returned with the storyline element he wants to see out of coordinators:
Honestly I want coordinators so we can have a Coaching Carousel, and I want to see my coordinators grow to become a HC somewhere else because that adds to the story and helps keep me engaged in my franchise mode.
SolidSquid adds on with these comments about going beyond just the Carousel:
I hope it’s more than a Carousel though. I hope they find a way to tie coaches schemes to the players they desire. For example, if Joe Schmo’s scheme wants a highly accurate, high throw power QB, and he goes to the Ravens, do they look to move on from Lamar?
gausec does not disagree with SolidSquid, but does think of perhaps a cleaner way to think about the coordinator hiring process in the first place.
I’d love to see more immersion with the new system (hopefully there is). However, I think your idea would be hard to pull off. In the scenario you list above, I think the more likely scenario would be the Ravens would never hire a coach who says I can’t work with Lamar. Rather, the system needs potential coaches to look at personnel and evaluate if they could succeed with the team’s core.
That’s just a sampling from the community to this point, so by all means hop in and keep chatting about what you want to see out of NFL coordinators in Madden 22.
Yep. I would be the main person skipping through it. It's kind of like how madden 21 has that "the offensive coordinator wants to talk about next week's opponent" dialogue.
Another thing to skip through.
I hope it’s more than a carousel though, I hope they find a way to tie coaches schemes to the players they desire. For example if Joe Schmo’s scheme wants a highly accurate high throw power QB, and he goes to the Ravens, do they look to move on from Lamar?
If there's only one NFL licensed game in the video game market, it should be able to cater to players who want to sit through an hour or two between games, micromanaging their team, preparing for their opponent, etc. as well as players who want to only play the offensive snaps of their team and run through four games in an hour every time they play with little to no planning/playing outside of the actual games.
Madden should be as immersive as the player wants it to be.
It could be merged with what they’re already doing with the little messages that pop up.
But honestly, I’d prefer if things like player development and scheme foundations all be done in the off-season before the preseason, rather than weekly events. Player development can be done manually via OTAs/minicamp, and then experience at the end of the season can be added to that.
I'd love to see more immersion with the new system (hopefully it is). However, I think your idea would be hard to pull off. In the scenario you list above, I think the more likely scenario would be the Ravens would never hire a coach who says I can't work with Lamar, but rather the system needs coaches to look at personal and evaluate if they could succeed with the teams core.
Now, if you could talk with your coaches and make actual gameplan strategies that would affect what happens on the field, you have something there.
That will never, and I mean EVER, happen. That’s way too much depth.
Now, if you could talk with your coaches and make actual gameplan strategies that would affect what happens on the field, you have something there.
That will never, and I mean EVER, happen. That’s way too much depth.
After getting burned so frequently by EA, I think most of us are in the mindset that this is just a new coat of paint that they're doing and this will have no real impact. I think the gameplay stragties would never happen, as it seems too much like head coach, but I was surprised when they moved the scheme fits over which was a head coach thing at first.
My guess is this system will provide small bonus to your players attributes. Andy Reid +5 THA etc. It seems to be small enough that the casual gamer won't be overwheelmed and a move to say to the sim guy-Look your choices at coaching matters! You can augment your franchise QB with hiring a staff that makes the most of his skillset.
They probably won't do that because IMO a whole lot more people will complain about not being able to just choose the playbooks they want then will want the coordinator playbooks locked.
There are some areas of the game where they are pointlessly restrictive and others where they allow maximum flexibility. this is an area where I expect them to be really loose, unfortunately, IMO.
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I don't know, maybe this would be a weak idea but I think it would be a good idea to balance the idea of planning for your opponent without making it seem tedious, too arcadey (like position group boosts), or just making it not worth investing the time for the more casual Franchise player (which, lets face it, they're going to cater to one way or another) but still rewarding and realistic enough to satisfy the "hardcore sim-guys," like myself.
Inclined to agree with this. Technically they already have coordinators in the game who are “scared” of the opposing team’s X factor players. It’s so forgettable people don’t even really appreciate it.
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Having players retire to become coaches would be a great next step for this feature. Though if they do add that back in, it has to be the "right" players. It doesn't really seem players like Brett Favre or Ray Lewis become coaches that often, but those were always the players that it happened to in Madden 06. Maybe an option to select "Turn this Player into a coach" after retiring. Definitely getting ahead of myself here.
Whatever those effects are, go nuts.
Whatever those effects are, go nuts.
I agree. I wouldn't just want to see 3+ MAC and AWR or an increased XP for certain positions
It would be cool to incorporate their impact into play-calling. Probably would have to overhaul the playcall system. They could add another play call tab for Coordinator plays. Where their play selection could be based on their skill. The higher the skill, the more high percentage and situation appropriate the plays are. The more you have success with their plays, the more XP the coordinator gets. Also could add Coach Nostadomis feature from NCAA 14. Where if they are skilled enough, they'll call out the coverage. I liked that feature because if you knew how to attack a coverage, it has a huge impact. Or highlight a mismatch before a play starts
So to put it simply, I want coordinators to have a massive impact on how your team is run and constructed.
Free Agents - Should want to work with prior/successful coordinators, coaches, schemes and for organizations that are putting together like-minded traits. A power RB might not want to go to a power running team, who is shoe-horning in a pass happy spread offense playbook/scheme. To a lesser extent this should apply to draft picks, they have a bit less control of their destiny at the onset, but coordinators should recommend/influence your picks in certain types of organizations (which is off topic but should be a thing - ie involved owner, coach-as-GM, coach-as-coordinator, etc because those could be really great ways to differentiate how teams are run)
Head Coaches - if you are GM, your ability to hire and retain your head coach should be factored into the types of coordinators you bring on
Coordinators - Your ability to hire and retain your coordinators should be based on the ability to let them run their schemes and sign and draft the types of players they like to run.
Money can overcome a lot of these potential negatives, but short of a big chemistry system to dynamically manage between all of these elements I think a lot of value could be had with a simpler first or second year of coordinators.
Of course the natural want is full career progression - player to coordinator <-> coach. I'd love the heck out of that too. Establishing my own traits, leading from me being a player to then running the type of offense I want to run and that dictating my fit among players and teams... that could be a great experience.
Most importantly, if players and coaches do not have more depth to their "personalities" it will be a shallow and empty experience. I don't want to be able to sign every player or coach I really want.
One last thing. I would LOVE to have a coaching tree available. If I am 20 years in, it would be awesome to see how many head coaches were under my coach and so on. Making it even more complicated, those coaches would inherit scheme and could potentially increase the difficulty in getting players for your own team. The Shanahan system comes to mind.
Madden has unfortunately never really captured any feeling of any coach ever calling the game differently. The play calling is pure RNG. The CPU gets 20 plays they can call any given situation and RNG just chooses one of those plays. They have zero tendencies, your playcalling doesn't impact what they do, past success or failure has no impact.
The VIP system made it so that coaches actually did have tendencies that could change over time or during the game. If a Mike Shanahan team ran right 80% the time on 2nd and medium, but you stopped most of those run plays in your game, they would often adjust. Some games they'd remain stubborn, others they'd adjust to you and your team and then if they found success with another play type, they stuck with that.
EA needs that kind of personality and dynamic gameplay to be introduced with coordinators. They need to have an impact on every single game. They need to be unique. Some should adapt quick. Others should remain stubborn. They should all have recognizable tendencies that are realistic. The old completely RNG playcalling needs to be replaced with something that gives the AI some logic.
Lastly, EA needs to take something else from the 2k playbook. In Choops 2k8, your assistant coaches would be influenced by your coaching style. They wouldn't always copy you completely, but if you hired an assistant offensive coach and you ran a high pace offense and you had success, you could actually see your assistant coach's coaching style change to be more like your style than what it originally was when he was hired. And when your coaches would go on to be the head men at other schools, it was always neat to see your influence in the college world. Your tree wasn't just a cosmetic thing, your playstyle impacted the college world and if they had success, their assistants would be influenced and also change their styles a bit and it was cool to see 10 years down the road, if you had success that 20 teams around the country were mimicking your team because of that success. I remember being at Chattanooga and my assistant took the Citadel job and after he was there a few years he had essentially recruited the same type of team as me and was running my system as good as me if not better. My undefeated season ended with a conference championship loss to my protege because he beat me with my very own system. That's one of my favorite gaming moments of all time that I wish a football game would finally replicate.
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They could take about key players on the upcoming team, their big plays to watch for, how your team matches up, and who should start at their positions.
Thoughts?
I’d take that. Most of us don’t like current coaches and staff anyways