Continuing on in our series of the best archetypes to upgrade in Madden’s franchise mode, today we are covering cornerbacks.
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.
There are 3 archetypes you can use your skill points on to upgrade cornerbacks in Madden.
- Zone
- Man To Man
- Slot
We spent 100 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:
Zone
Madden Claims: ZCV, PRS, PRC
Reality: ZCV, AWR, PRC
Man To Man
Madden Claims: MCV, PRS, JMP
Reality: MCV, AWR, PRC
Slot
Madden Claims: MCV, PRC, TAK
Reality: MCV, AWR, PRS
Our Recommendation For Upgrading Cornerbacks
When conducting this experiment with cornerbacks, we came across the biggest surprise out of any position.
Note: Our recommendations do not take into account superstar abilities that unlock at specific overall ratings. We are only looking at which upgrades produce the best individual attribute increases.
If there is a specific superstar ability you are working towards getting, it can make sense to upgrade that archetype even though the individual attribute increases might be low.
If you are calling zone coverage more than 80% of the time, then our recommendation is to upgrade the Zone archetype.
In every other situation, we strongly recommend upgrading the Slot archetype on all of your cornerbacks.
Highest Expected Value For Total Attribute Increases
We did 100 tests for each CB 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 100 tests is that the expected value of ratings increases for Slot was higher than any of the other archetypes.
- Slot: 572 rating increases on 100 attempts. Expected Value = 5.72
- Zone: 468 rating increases on 100 attempts. Expected Value = 4.68
- Man: 468 rating increases on 100 attempts. Expected Value = 4.68
Why Slot Is Much Better Than Man To Man
We can see from the expected values in the previous section that the Slot archetype nets you more individual attribute increases than either Zone or Man to Man.
We’ll focus in this section on all of the reasons why Slot is so much better than Man.
If we were to make a list of the most important attributes for a cornerback playing man to man defense they would likely include:
- Speed
- Acceleration
- Man Coverage
- Press Coverage
In all of these categories, upgrading the Slot archetype significantly outperforms the Man to Man Archetype. Let’s go through these findings in more detail.
Out of 100 skill points spent we saw the following rating increases:
- Speed: +13 For Slot, +2 For Man
- Acceleration: +14 for Slot, +9 For Man
- Man Coverage: +201 For Slot, +150 For Man
- Press Coverage: +66 for Slot, +53 For Man
Without a doubt, the most important of these ratings are Speed and Man Coverage and you can see the huge difference between them.
You are 6.5 times more likely to get a speed upgrade and you will get 34% more man coverage increases when choosing the Slot archetype instead of Man To Man. This really makes the decision a no brainer.
Why You Still May Choose Zone
All of that being said, if your defensive scheme has your cornerbacks in zone coverage the vast majority of the time, it can still make more sense to upgrade the Zone Archetype.
Here are some of the findings we found when we spent 100 skill points on zone:
- Speed: +10
- Acceleration: +14
- Zone Coverage: +174 (Only +22 for Slot archetype)
- Press: +20
You can see that with both speed and acceleration, the results are somewhat close to the Slot archetype.
The big difference is that you will get nearly 8 times more zone coverage increases choosing the Zone archetype than you will choosing the the Slot Archetype.
If you are playing predominantly zone defense, this is too big of a difference to ignore.
A Different Way Of Looking At It
We created a player that was 60 overall at every archetype: Zone, Man, and Slot. Then we spent 25 skill points on each archetype. Here are the findings:
25 points spent on Zone. Results:
- 85 Zone
- 78 Slot
- 75 Man
25 points spent on Man. Results:
- 76 Zone
- 82 Slot
- 85 Man
25 points spent on Slot. Results:
- 80 Zone
- 85 Slot
- 90 Man
The big takeaway you can immediately see from these numbers is that if you want to increase your cornerbacks Man to Man Archetype, you should spend your skill points on the Slot Archetype.
For every 5 points you spend on Slot, your cornerback will go up 6 points in Man to Man.
Final Ratings, Raw Data, and Conclusion
The huge takeaway from this experiment is to NEVER upgrade the man to man archetype. If you want to increase a CBs man to man rating as fast as possible, always upgrade Slot instead.
If you play predominantly zone defense and don’t plan to ever trade the player away, you should upgrade the Zone archetype.
Here are our final rankings:
- Slot
- Zone
- Man to Man
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.