Our first tip on building a successful team in Madden 25 Connected Franchise Mode may seem obvious to some of you. Nonetheless, it is a mistake we saw made over and over last year. If you are looking to take your team to the Super Bowl in this year’s franchise mode, you will need to draft a good quarterback. Our experts explain why you might be doing it all wrong.
The conventional strategy has always been to draft the QB who has the highest development trait as long as his attributes are halfway decent. In general, this concept works but by doing it this way, you may be missing out on the better value draft picks.
Instead of doing it this way, we recommend going after a quarterback with high throw power and speed instead. Stick with us as we explain why. Imagine a scenario with 2 quarterbacks and their respective ratings below (any rating not mentioned should be considered to be equal in both QBs).
Quarterback A: Superstar progression, 90 Throw Power, 75 Speed, 85 SAC, 85 MAC, 85 DAC
Quarterback B: Normal Progression, 96 Throw Power, 82 Speed, 85 SAC, 85 MAC, 85 DAC
The conventional wisdom would dictate to take Quarterback A because he will progress so much faster. That idea may also work for some people, but we would argue that Quarterback B would be the better choice for most.
From a pure numbers standpoint, it would take only 100,000 xp to go from normal progression to superstar progression in Madden 25. To go up 6 points in throw power would cost about 200,000, not to mention another 300,000 xp to go up in speed. To get to superstar progression with 96 throw power, 82 speed, 85 sac, mac, and dac it would take quarterback A around 500,000 xp while it would only take quarterback B only 100,000 points. With the 400,000 xp difference, quarterback B could easily have 99 throw power or around 99 ratings in all accuracy categories.
If you covet speed and throw power in your quarterbacks, as most people do, what looks like somewhat of a toss up between 2 quarterbacks becomes an extremely easy choice. Figure out what skills you value in a specific position and do the math to figure out how much upgrading that attribute will cost you. Then make your draft choices based on the math. You won’t regret it and you will come out of it with a much better team.
Please note: It is true that it will take quarterback B a longer time to earn XP in his first year or two, but that is usually made up within the first year or 2 if xp is assigned properly (aka exclusively to upgrading his development skills).
What are some of your favorite drafting tips for connected franchise mode? Let us know in the comments section below.
The only issue I take with this analysis is that accuracy ratings usually aren’t that identical between qbs. i would be curious to if your analysis might change if say the scenario was this:
QB A) Normal Dev – 96THP / 72spd / 85sac /mac /dac
QB B) Quick Dev – 91 THP / 88 spd 82SAC 85MAC 75 DAC
or this scenario :
QB A) Quick Dev – 93 THP / 68spd / 85SAC /MAC /DAC
QB B) Normal Dev – 95 THP / 84SPD / 75SAC / 75MAC / 77 DAC
of course, we can throw around all kinds of scenarios, but it seems that a lot of this advice coming just seems to emphasize speed uber alles. i would hope the game is developing beyond where speed is the one attribute that basically can make everything else worthless. one of the big problems hardcore sim players have withthe game is the over emphasis on speed and i have to say it’s a little troubling to still see people giving advice where all roads lead to the faster guy. not that speed shouldnt be a factor, but it shouldnt be so overwhelming that it forgives every other aspect of stupid play.
In both of those scenarios it depends on play style. How much do yo value a mobile quarterback. Do you run a lot of read option? Do you like to scramble when things break down?
If speed doesn’t matter to you then Quarterback A in the first scenario is the overwhelmingly obvious choice because upgrading 5 THP takes far more XP than going from normal to quick progression. The second scenario is kind of a toss up to me though. I’d personally go with the one with speed but that is purely based on personal choice.
This makes sense to me because the cost of the running attributes for a QB are far more expensive than throwing attributes. I really want to build a chart for each position that shows which attributes cost more in the long run. If not for myself but to share once I
complete it
Hey jon,
Just curious as to whether or not you have made/finished that chart mentioned in the post earlier?