Madden finally gave fans got what they wanted, and the #FixMaddenFranchise campaign got EA’s attention for the better. Madden 22 set Ultimate Team and Face of the Franchise aside to bring the latest Franchise mode up to par. While fans await the scouting overhaul promised since day one, most are happy with how Franchise mode turned out this year. Here are some helpful tips and tricks to building a dominant franchise in Madden 22, one that could rival the ’70s Steelers, the ’90s Cowboys, and the ’00s Patriots.

Player, coach, or owner

Who are you? Are you an up-and-coming star in the NFL, a creative head coach, or a life-long fan turned franchise owner? While you have three paths to go down, the differences between owner and coach are negligible. We recommend choosing the owner path for a more immersive experience. If you’re looking to focus solely on football, the player path trims the fat off Madden 22 Franchise mode.

For the best experience in Madden 22 Franchise mode, choose the Owner path. Why? There’s nothing you can’t do as the owner of an NFL franchise. You can play every game, hire and fire coaches, manage player personnel, and even relocate your team. Thankfully, the nuances of being an owner won’t bog you down if you don’t want them to, but we’ll touch on that in the next section.

Quality of life

Whether you’re a rookie in the Madden 22 locker room or a returning veteran, there are quality-of-life adjustments you can make before beginning your Madden 22 career. Here are some ideal settings to change under the League Settings tab to make life as an NFL player, coach, or owner much easier.

To find League Settings:

• Tab over to Options from the main team page.
• Selected Franchise Settings.
• Select League Settings.

You can set these changes before you begin your new franchise and can change them at any time via the League Settings tab. Here are a few settings you’ll want to change.

Difficulty

There is no bonus for playing on Rookie or All-Madden difficulties. Choose a difficulty that meets your skill level and increase it when you feel the games are getting boring. That being said, All-Madden should be your goal, especially if you plan to play online. If you can beat the CPU on All-Madden (which isn’t easy), you’ll fare well against other players, which defaults the CPU to All-Pro difficulty. Think of it like swinging a weighted baseball bat.

Practice injury

Turn this off. Yes, real-life NFL players get hurt at practice all the time. If you’re committed to hyper-realism in your Madden 22 franchise, that’s fine. However, if you’re looking to bend the rules of realism for the sake of a video game, go ahead and practice as hard as you want without worrying about one of your stars tearing their ACL. Just don’t practice too hard, leaving your team fatigued on Sunday.

Quarter length

This one is a bit of a toss-up. The game defaults to six-minute quarters, which can feel like a slog at times. However, the longer the quarters, the more opportunities you have to meet your weekly goals. For example, you may have a weekly passing goal of 250+ yards, which is unattainable with shorter quarters, especially on All-Pro/Madden difficulties. However, you can always choose different goals, like throwing two touchdown passes, to fit within your time restrictions. We set our quarters to 4 minutes each to accurately simulate online Ultimate Team games. Because we like to bounce back and forth between the two modes, it’s helpful to keep things consistent. We’ll touch on maintaining consistency between MUT and Franchise later on.

Accelerated clock

Turn this off. You can always opt for the chew-clock tempo option in-game. Accelerated Clock will shoot you in the foot more times than not, especially when you’re trying to make reads and adjustments.

User team help settings

Toward the bottom of your league settings, you’ll find a handful of options that you can set to auto or manual. Let’s talk about what you’ll want to control vs. what the CPU can handle. Changing the following settings to auto will make your life easier:

• Preseason Cut Days
• Contract Negotiations
• League Advancement

For Contract Negotiations, turn this off when one of your star players wants to negotiate. You don’t want the CPU to let DaVante Adams go because he wants more money. Pay the man.

League Advancement will automatically skip to the next week after you play your game, so make sure you’ve gone through your order of operations before playing that week. Other than the settings above, leave everything else on manual. You’ll scout college players, bid on free agents, and manage your practice reps.