Rudy and Jaymo's Madden CCM experience

[Rudy]

The best offer for me to move down is to #12 and get another 2nd rounder this year with Tampa. I may do that and then move back up to get the WR. So torn!

Draft trade commentary - the game restricts the trades a bit which I don't mind. When you try to trade up in the draft you can only trade for that exact pick. You can't ask for another lower pick in exchange to try and balance out the trade which is a bit annoying but I didn't mind. When you trade down you will normally have quite a few offers. I would see 6 or 7 offers I think but those are the ONLY offers you can accept. There is no negotiation with any of those teams or any other team that made no offer. When you do make an offer it is a one shot deal. They do have colour coding to determine how much interest the other team has but you have no real way of knowing so make a fair offer. If they turn it down you lose the shot at drafting in that spot when moving up. The draft moves on one spot.

Back to my draft. I'm not exactly shrewd in the wheeling and dealing department. I panic. With those three prospects that rated B I did what I needed to do to make sure I got them. The WR was ranked #18. I traded down from #5 with Tampa and got the #12 pick and the #12 pick in round two. Then I tried moving up with most teams but nobody wanted to take my #12 and the last pick in the 3rd round to swap spots (#8 to #9 both declined). So I finally just traded my #12 plus 3rd and 5th to Cleveland at #10 to swap spots. I just would have been so disappointed to miss out on that WR and there were a few guys in the Top 10 that were sliding and I knew they would since they were overrated. So I got my WR. Turns out he's only got 84 speed (I did know he was a B speed) but he's huge and will be Plaxico. You don't get their true ratings until after the draft.

So now I want the MLB with the B grade ranked 32 overall. The 27th rated kid went in the Top 15 so I did not want to chance this. The scouted busts at the top do slide so I panicked again. I moved up from #32 all the way to #15 by throwing in the last pick in round 2. I then grabbed my MLB.

So now I still have the #12 pick in round two but only picks in rounds 4, 6 and 7 left. My SS (30th overall in 3rd round) is no doubt going to be there but as you get later in the draft you can see a two round discrepancy at times (4th rounders in the 6th). Once it came to pick at #12 in round two I knew I could probably trade down at least 10 spots and still get him. The problem was I didn't have any good trade down options. Most were teams offering future picks or a lower 2nd rounder and only an extra 7th rounder. I didn't want that. I was hoping to move down 10 spots and maybe pick up a 4th rounder but those didn't exist. So I just picked my SS. Of course the twitter feed trashed my pick lol. The twitter analysis is always done by overall draft grade and not real rating. So when the #2 overall pick slipped to #14 (C overall) it was praised even though I knew it wasn't a great pick. Same for the top RB ranked #7 overall that slipped to #24. Praised but I knew better.

At the end of the day though I'm VERY happy with what I got. The WR ended up 80 overall, the MLB 83 overall and my SS ended up an 80 although he's rated an 82 at FS and will now be starting there. He was actually listed as a FS in the draft stories but a SS in the draft.




The HOF decided to elect Tom Brady and Tony Gonzalez but Randy Moss missed the cut! Brutal! (first year HOF voting is fine for a video game imo).



(My son was taking the pics with our new iPad so excuse the angle lol)

[morsdraconis]

Wow. No way Randy Moss isn't a first ballot HOFer. I HATE the guy and the way he played the game, but he was one of the most dominate WRs to EVER play the game. No way he's not immediately inducted.

[Rudy]

Wow. No way Randy Moss isn't a first ballot HOFer. I HATE the guy and the way he played the game, but he was one of the most dominate WRs to EVER play the game. No way he's not immediately inducted.

I totally agree with this. His stats and the fear he instilled in defenses while in his prime are top shelf. I'd hate to say he was better than Jerry Rice but he's right up there. Probably the most talented WR ever.

[steelerfan]

I totally agree with this. His stats and the fear he instilled in defenses while in his prime are top shelf. I'd hate to say he was better than Jerry Rice but he's right up there. Probably the most talented WR ever.

He was not better than Rice. Not even close. HOF? Yes, absolutely, though voters may cockblock him for a couple years for being a dick. That said, he is not Jerry Rice.

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[souljahbill]

He was not better than Rice. Not even close. HOF? Yes, absolutely, though voters may cockblock him for a couple years for being a dick. That said, he is not Jerry Rice.

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He was absolutely better then Jerry Rice, talent wise. He just didn't work remotely close to how hard Jerry Rice worked. If Randy Moss had Jerry Rice's work ethic, he would have SMASHED all of Jerry's records.

[steelerfan]

He was absolutely better then Jerry Rice, talent wise. He just didn't work remotely close to how hard Jerry Rice worked. If Randy Moss had Jerry Rice's work ethic, he would have SMASHED all of Jerry's records.

So you're saying POTENTIAL is greater than PRODUCTION. Sorry, no.

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[jaymo76]

I don't know what the heck is going on. At least 3 players I scouted aren't listed in the scouting department for the draft anymore. One guy was in a feature story. I hope they come back.

Lots of coaching changes. Whisenhunt to Tennessee, Rex Ryan to Seattle, Marvin Lewis to Baltimore, Norv Turner to Philly, new coach to Minny, new coach to Redskins, new coach to Jets. Clay Matthews got franchise tagged, Randy Moss retired, Osi U got tagged lol, Vontae Davis franchised by Colts, B.Albert by Chiefs.

As to the missing players, I thought I heard that some players decide not to enter the draft and return to college for their senior year. Maybe that's what happened?

[jaymo76]

Holy crap. Some good players available in free agency. At QB there is Romo, Matt Ryan and Josh Freeman. McFadden is available at RB! So is Beanie Wells. A.Boldin, Maclin at WR along with Heyward-Bey. What are the Raiders doing? Pettigrew top TE. E. Monroe a 27 year old, 90 rated LT available. Shocked to see some good young talent availabe but this is a good thing! Two good 28 year old centers on the market. Some good DL too. Most of the good LBs are old but a couple really good MLB like Sean Lee are there. Nothing special at safety.

I only have $5.7 million in cap room and I haven't drafted yet. I don't think I can get involved in any bidding wars and it appears the cpu teams are struggling as well. I've got the 5th pick in the draft! I don't like the kids at the top and will try to trade down about 5 spots and acquire a 2nd rounder if i can.

I'd love to go after Matt Ryan (86 overall) and he only wants $11 million per year but I know that will go up. Not many guys I can cut to make a move for anyone.

McFadden a 90 ovr based on the screens you posted, is available? The only reason I could see would be for INJURY issues. Still, that makes no sense to me that so many GREAT players are up for grabs. I look forward to seeing how it works in future seasons.

[jaymo76]

The draft is up next.

Free agency re-cap: Matt Ryan (wants $11M yr) and Josh Freeman (almost $9 mil at 83 overall) went unsigned! Holy crap! One top guard 81 overall (wanted $4-$5 mil) went unsigned. One DE L.Sidbury was 82, speed rusher, age 28 and only wanted under $1.5 million a year. That's a steal. If I have room I will pick him up after the draft. Just sitting there. Nick Barnett rated 89 at ROLB but at 33 and wanting up to $6.6 mill a year has priced himself out of a team. Old expensive CBs sitting there too: C.Webster, C. Tillman, A.Winfield. All want over $5 mill right now.

Oh my, if that were my Raiders franchise I would have to bite on the Matt Ryan option. That's a lot of cash but Ryan is young enough that you could build around him from the draft. Plus if the Raiders still have Moore and Goodson they have a strong presence in the backfield. Moore and Streater at WR would be adequate to complete (speed and possession).

[jaymo76]

The best offer for me to move down is to #12 and get another 2nd rounder this year with Tampa. I may do that and then move back up to get the WR. So torn!

Draft trade commentary - the game restricts the trades a bit which I don't mind. When you try to trade up in the draft you can only trade for that exact pick. You can't ask for another lower pick in exchange to try and balance out the trade which is a bit annoying but I didn't mind. When you trade down you will normally have quite a few offers. I would see 6 or 7 offers I think but those are the ONLY offers you can accept. There is no negotiation with any of those teams or any other team that made no offer. When you do make an offer it is a one shot deal. They do have colour coding to determine how much interest the other team has but you have no real way of knowing so make a fair offer. If they turn it down you lose the shot at drafting in that spot when moving up. The draft moves on one spot.

Back to my draft. I'm not exactly shrewd in the wheeling and dealing department. I panic. With those three prospects that rated B I did what I needed to do to make sure I got them. The WR was ranked #18. I traded down from #5 with Tampa and got the #12 pick and the #12 pick in round two. Then I tried moving up with most teams but nobody wanted to take my #12 and the last pick in the 3rd round to swap spots (#8 to #9 both declined). So I finally just traded my #12 plus 3rd and 5th to Cleveland at #10 to swap spots. I just would have been so disappointed to miss out on that WR and there were a few guys in the Top 10 that were sliding and I knew they would since they were overrated. So I got my WR. Turns out he's only got 84 speed (I did know he was a B speed) but he's huge and will be Plaxico. You don't get their true ratings until after the draft.

So now I want the MLB with the B grade ranked 32 overall. The 27th rated kid went in the Top 15 so I did not want to chance this. The scouted busts at the top do slide so I panicked again. I moved up from #32 all the way to #15 by throwing in the last pick in round 2. I then grabbed my MLB.

So now I still have the #12 pick in round two but only picks in rounds 4, 6 and 7 left. My SS (30th overall in 3rd round) is no doubt going to be there but as you get later in the draft you can see a two round discrepancy at times (4th rounders in the 6th). Once it came to pick at #12 in round two I knew I could probably trade down at least 10 spots and still get him. The problem was I didn't have any good trade down options. Most were teams offering future picks or a lower 2nd rounder and only an extra 7th rounder. I didn't want that. I was hoping to move down 10 spots and maybe pick up a 4th rounder but those didn't exist. So I just picked my SS. Of course the twitter feed trashed my pick lol. The twitter analysis is always done by overall draft grade and not real rating. So when the #2 overall pick slipped to #14 (C overall) it was praised even though I knew it wasn't a great pick. Same for the top RB ranked #7 overall that slipped to #24. Praised but I knew better.

At the end of the day though I'm VERY happy with what I got. The WR ended up 80 overall, the MLB 83 overall and my SS ended up an 80 although he's rated an 82 at FS and will now be starting there. He was actually listed as a FS in the draft stories but a SS in the draft.




The HOF decided to elect Tom Brady and Tony Gonzalez but Randy Moss missed the cut! Brutal! (first year HOF voting is fine for a video game imo).



(My son was taking the pics with our new iPad so excuse the angle lol)

Rudy, if you need more at the WR/TE position you have to bring FASANO back to your team. Back on season pass I picked him up as a FA and he was awesome for short over the middle routes. The guy was money on 3rd down plays. Originally I brought in Bo Scaife and the guy was awful! Depending on your offensive style (I run a lot of I formation and short passing offense) big, strong TE's are essential to the short yardage passing game.

Again Rudy, thanks for posting all of these great reads. Very enjoyable! Props to your son too for the pics! (I personally love my ipad)

[jaymo76]

He was not better than Rice. Not even close. HOF? Yes, absolutely, though voters may cockblock him for a couple years for being a dick. That said, he is not Jerry Rice.

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After watching him "half-ass" it with my Raiders for a couple of seasons (and stupid me splurging on his Raiders jersey) I would take issue with him being a first ballot HOFamer. In a couple of years... yes... but just for the principle... not right now!

[Rudy]

Fasano was let go after year 1. He wanted over $3 million and I put the money into Kellen Winslow. He has reliable hands and is a real good blocker but he's not a real weapon in the passing game. I'm going into year 3 and my team is solid although I'm getting a bit old in the front 7.

[souljahbill]

So you're saying POTENTIAL is greater than PRODUCTION. Sorry, no.

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So if production is the only thing we go by, then Brett Favre is the best QB of all time and Emmitt Smith is the best RB of all time. These things are undebatable, right? They produced the most so they're just the best, point blank, right?

Jerry Rice is great, now doubt, but he was the product of a great offense and a tremendous work ethic. He worked harder then everyone and that's why he was successful.

For Randy Moss, it was "easy." He didn't have to work hard to be better than everyone. He just was and he knew it. That's why he never reached his full potential. It was too easy for him and he never had to work for it.

If you combined Jerry's work ethic with Moss's talent, the numbers Moss could have put up would have been astonomical!

[steelerfan]

So if production is the only thing we go by, then Brett Favre is the best QB of all time and Emmitt Smith is the best RB of all time. These things are undebatable, right? They produced the most so they're just the best, point blank, right?

Jerry Rice is great, now doubt, but he was the product of a great offense and a tremendous work ethic. He worked harder then everyone and that's why he was successful.

For Randy Moss, it was "easy." He didn't have to work hard to be better than everyone. He just was and he knew it. That's why he never reached his full potential. It was too easy for him and he never had to work for it.

If you combined Jerry's work ethic with Moss's talent, the numbers Moss could have put up would have been astonomical!

The discussion is about the HOF. PRODUCTION is far more important than POTENTIAL in such a discussion.

Behind Barry Sanders, Bo Jackson may have been the most talented NFL back that I ever watched. However, circumstances (baseball and hip injury) dictated that he never achieved the numbers he could have. You won't hear me compare his accomplishments to those of Sanders (or Smith).

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[JeffHCross]

The discussion is about the HOF. PRODUCTION is far more important than POTENTIAL in such a discussion.

Actually, you seem to be having two different discussions. While it started with HOF, Rudy's original statement was "most talented WR ever". In which TALENT is the only piece up for debate, not PRODUCTION, nor, really, POTENTIAL.

[jaymo76]

Fasano was let go after year 1. He wanted over $3 million and I put the money into Kellen Winslow. He has reliable hands and is a real good blocker but he's not a real weapon in the passing game. I'm going into year 3 and my team is solid although I'm getting a bit old in the front 7.

After reading your posts I did some Madden searching on the web. Back to your comments about good players being cut. It seems a lot of people see Matt Ryan in the FA pool by year three. It sounds like the cpu has serious salary cap issues and lacks the logic of sound reasoning on key positions so it just cuts high salary and/or releases players with no contract offer eg. Matt Ryan as a slew of excellent receivers. I also read that great WR's and RB's are a dime a dozen so don't pay a lot for a veteran.

In addition, apparently you have to turn progression on to "end of the year" or else cpu players on all the other teams will NOT progress. One of my major concerns early on was how the new system would impact progression. I guess the Tiburon team is still trying to figure it out?

[Rudy]

So I have to set it to end of year for the cpu to get any benefit? Wow. I never knew that. I had mine set at quarterly.

Matt Ryan was signed by Arizona to a 1 year, $8 million dollar deal on the 3rd week of the season. Josh Freeman was signed by the Raiders as well. One year $6.3 million. Carson Palmer went immediately on the trade block. He still has 4 years left on his deal. Richard Seymour has a lot of money left as well. The Raiders have just over $1 million in cap space in preseason. They need to dump Carson. For some reason Delanie Walker is on the trade block despite the fact he is clearly the best TE (77 or so) and the two backup TEs are veterans rated in the upper 60s.

[jaymo76]

Hah! Any scenario where Carson Palmer is out of Oakland is a good one. However it seems like a weird move to bring in a new qb with a one year deal. Also putting your best te on the block is just nuts since that is one of Oakland's biggest liability.

[Rudy]

Once the pre-season/season starts all free agents can only be signed to a one year deal. You have no choice in what to pay or for how long. It's just how EA chose to do this with Madden. None of them involve a bonus either so you can cut them without penalty. I just signed that one RDE that was an 82 to a one year, $1.3 million dollar deal. He'll back up Wake. I've seen other cpu teams start to grab some of the higher priced, older guys that never got signed as well. I agree that it would be nice to have more control here but these guys are all considered street free agents with something to prove. So they take a little less on a one year deal and hope to cash in the next offseason. You get a discount now and but do get a chance to re-sign them later.

I have no clue what the Raiders are doing at TE. Makes zero sense to try and move D.Walker.

[jaymo76]

Once the pre-season/season starts all free agents can only be signed to a one year deal. You have no choice in what to pay or for how long. It's just how EA chose to do this with Madden. None of them involve a bonus either so you can cut them without penalty. I just signed that one RDE that was an 82 to a one year, $1.3 million dollar deal. He'll back up Wake. I've seen other cpu teams start to grab some of the higher priced, older guys that never got signed as well. I agree that it would be nice to have more control here but these guys are all considered street free agents with something to prove. So they take a little less on a one year deal and hope to cash in the next offseason. You get a discount now and but do get a chance to re-sign them later.

I have no clue what the Raiders are doing at TE. Makes zero sense to try and move D.Walker.

I don't like how you can't negotiate term but I guess a game can only do so much. Oh we'll. now with Brady retired it will be interesting to see how the Pats respond. Do you know if they have drafted a QBor are they going with Mallet? You may be in full control of the AFC with Brady gone.