The Best Wide Receiver Archetypes To Increase In Madden 24 Franchise

Continuing on in our series of the best archetypes to upgrade in Madden’s franchise mode, today we are covering wide receivers.

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 that we recommend worth it.

Wide Receiver Archetypes

There are 4 archetypes you can use your skill points on to upgrade wide receivers in Madden.

• Deep Threat
• Slot
• Playmaker
• Physical

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.

Deep Threat

Madden Claims: DRR, RLS, SPC

Reality: DRR, RLS, CIT

Slot

Madden Claims: SRR, CIT, CTH

Reality: CIT, SRR, AWR

Playmaker

Madden Claims: SRR, MRR, DRR

Reality: BTK, AWR, SRR

Physical

Madden Claims: CIT, SPC, RLS

Reality: CIT, SPC, RLS

Our Recommendation For Upgrading Wide Receivers

After doing our experiment on wide receivers, we found that 2 archetypes were better than the others.

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.

Most gamers will want upgrades in speed, general catching attributes (CTH, CIT, SPC), route running attributes (SRR, MRR, DRR), and release.

Taking all of that into account our recommendation for best WR archetype to upgrade is Deep Threat.

Why Deep Threat Is The Best Archetype For WRs

There are a couple main reasons why Playmaker is our recommended archetype for wide receivers.

1. A high expected value for total individual attribute increases
2. The highest expected value for speed increases

Highest Expected Value For Total Attribute Increases

We did 100 tests for each WR 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 Deep Threat was the highest of all archetypes (and it wasn’t particularly close).

1. Playmaker: 989 rating increases on 100 attempts. Expected Value = 9.89
2. Deep Threat: 626 rating increases on 100 attempts. Expected Value = 6.26
3. Physical: 500 rating increases on 100 attempts. Expected Value = 5
4. Slot: 497 rating increases on 100 attempts. Expected Value = 4.97

What this tells us is that on average when you upgrade a player using the playmaker archetype you will receive 4 to 5 additional individual ratings increases than you would if you upgrade any other wide receiver archetype.

That is a HUGE difference but is a bit misleading. The Playmaker archetype can load receivers up with attributes that may not translate that well into on field play like Juke, Spin, and Break Tackle.

Highest Expected Value For Important Attribute Increases

Remember though, total rating increases aren’t the entire story. What most gamers want is rating increases that are noticeable and effective on the field.

For wide receivers, most gamers will prefer speed over everything else then some combination of catching, route running, and release.

Let’s first take a look at how much speed we can expect when upgrading different WR archetypes.

• Deep Threat: 8 speed increases on 100 attempts
• Slot: 7 speed increases on 100 attempts
• Playmaker: 3 speed increases on 100 attempts
• Physical: 1 speed increase on 100 attempts

The next most important individual rating to many is deep route running (DRR). Here are those results.

• Deep Threat: 103 DRR increases on 100 attempts
• Playmaker: 43 DRR increases on 100 attempts
• Slot: 12 DRR increases on 100 attempts
• Physical: 0 DRR increases on 100 attempts

A Different Way To Look At It

A different way to illustrate what we found is we made a fictional player who had was 60 overall for all archetypes. 60 Deep Threat, 60 Slot, 60 Playmaker, and 60 Physical. Then we spent 25 points for each archetype and recorded our findings.

25 points spent on Deep Threat. Results:

• 85 Deep Threat
• 82 Slot
• 85 Playmaker
• 81 Physical

Average Rating: (85+82+85+81)/4 = 83.25

25 points spent on Slot. Results:

• 79 Deep Threat
• 85 Slot
• 83 Playmaker
• 78 Physical

Average Rating: (79+85+83+78)/4 = 81.25

25 points spent on Playmaker. Results:

• 82 Deep Threat
• 83 Slot
• 85 Playmaker
• 83 Physical

Average Rating: (81+83+85+84/4 = 83.25

25 points spent on Physical. Results:

• 76 Deep Threat
• 77 Slot
• 76 Playmaker
• 85 Physical

Average Rating: (76+77+76+85)/4 = 78.25

Most people will want fairly well rounded receivers. What the above numbers show us is that the Deep Threat and the Playmaker archetypes really stand out.

Detailed Information And Interesting Facts

When upgrading the Deep Threat archetype, you will never get a short route running (SRR) increase.

When upgrading the Physical archetype, you will never get a deep route running (DRR) increase.

When upgrading the Slot archetype, you will never get a release (RLS) increase.

If you desperately want to upgrade SRR, MRR, or DRR then playmaker is the archetype you want to pursue.

If you only care about catching attributes (SPC, CIT) then you will want to pursue the Physical archetype.

Final Rankings, Raw Data, and Conclusion

Remember that player development varies with each player and what your team building goals are. These rankings are based on what we think most Madden players will want out of their upgrades but that could be different for you. That being said, our recommendation are:

1. Deep Threat
2. Playmaker
3. Slot
4. Physical

Deep Threat is the clear #1, Playmaker is #2, Slot is the clear #3, and Physical is the clear #4.

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.