Continuing on in our series of the best archetypes to upgrade in Madden’s franchise mode, today we are covering defensive tackles.
We spent thousands of skill points on all of the different archetypes for each position and documented the results of our experiment. This effort took weeks of data collection and man hours and we hope that you find the actionable takeaways from it.
Defensive Tackle Archetypes
There are 3 archetypes you can use your skill points on to upgrade defensive tackles in Madden.
- Speed Rusher
- Power Rusher
- Run Stopper
We spent 50 skill points on each of these archetypes and we’ll go through what we found in much more detail a little later on in the article. First, let’s start with what Madden claims each archetype’s top skill increases are:
Speed Rusher
Madden Claims: FMV, TAK, PUR
Reality: FMV, AWR, TAK
Power Rusher
Madden Claims: PMV, TAK, PUR
Reality: PMV, AWR, TAK
Run Stopper
Madden Claims: BSH, TAK, PRC
Reality: BSH, PRC, TAK
Our Recommendation For Upgrading Defensive Tackles
Defensive Tackles seems to share a very similar upgrade path as Defensive Ends with just a couple major exceptions.
Our recommendation for the best DT archetype to upgrade is whichever archetype your player already has the highest rating at.
Highest Expected Value For Total Attribute Increases
We did 50 tests for each DT archetype and marked down every individual rating increase they got then added all of it together for the total number of individual ratings increases.
What we found for these 50 tests is that the expected value of ratings increases for Power Rusher was higher than any of the other archetypes.
- Power Rusher: 223 rating increases on 50 attempts. Expected Value = 4.46
- Run Stopper: 214 rating increases on 50 attempts. Expected Value = 4.28
- Speed Rusher: 198 rating increases on 50 attempts. Expected Value = 3.96
Interesting Facts And Recommendations
While the overall results of our defensive tackle experiment seem pretty close to the results of our defensive end experiment. There are a couple things that jumped out.
First, if you are planning on upgrading the Run Stopper archetype, you may want to switch your Defensive Tackle to Defensive End.
Here’s why:
- Defensive End Test Results: 99 BSH
- Defensive Tackle Test Results: 69 BSH
On just 50 tests, the expected increase in block shed ratings for each skill point spent is 1.98 when the player is at defensive end but only 1.38 when he is at defensive tackle.
What this means is that if you were to spent 20 skill points on the Block Shed archetype at defensive end, you would receive an increase of 39-40 on a player’s block shed. If you did the same upgrades at defensive tackle, you would only see an increase of 27-28 block shed. That 12 point difference in only 20 points spent is huge!
It is the difference between having a player with 95 block shed or 83 block shed. One will be an elite difference maker while the other is only average. It would very much be worth it to switch a DTs position to DE for upgrading purposes and then just play him at DT in your depth chart.
Second, between all of our 150 skill points (50 for each archetype) spent across DTs and DEs, there is a noticeable difference in speed upgrades.
- Total Defensive End Speed Increases: 13 out of 150 upgrades
- Total Defensive Tackle Speed Increases: 6 out of 150 upgrades
Most people aren’t going to view speed as that important for defensive linemen but it is a consideration. Keeping all else equal, it would make sense to over double your chances of getting a speed increase with a simple position switch.
Final Rankings, Raw Data, and Conclusion
Just like with defensive ends, this just comes down to your personal preference.
The one big actionable takeaway from this set of data is that if you do plan on upgrading a defensive tackle with the run stopper archetype, you should switch his position to defensive end first.
Madden School Unlimited members have full access to all of the raw data that went into this experiment so you can dig into the details further.
Return to our Madden 24 franchise mode skill points/archetype overview.
Hi, can you explain what you mean as far as switching the dt to a de? Like just put them in the de spot in the depth chart?
You can go to edit the player and move that player’s position from DT to DE
Ok gotcha but in my franchise league the commissioner doesn’t allow that but I will keep that in mind
Sad thing is that they made it so that player can only gain +1 speed in franchise mode.
Does changing their position effect breakout games? Will it be harder to get them a breakout in the DE position while still playing them at DT?
Unfortunately, we don’t have enough data on that to give a good answer.