Madden NFL 06 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Franchise/Team Management/Salary Cap Guide ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Author: Aurabolt10 Email: Aurabolt12@aim.com AIM: Aurabolt12 Written for the Nintendo GameCube version. File Started: Wednesday, December 14, 2005 at 11:33 A.M. Last Updated: Monday, May 29, 2006 at 4:57 P.M. 1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789 +++++++++++++++++ Table of Contents +++++++++++++++++ I. Introduction II. General Team Management III. Salary Cap IV. Off-Season V. Trading Draft Picks VI. Thanks/Goodbye Updates can be found by pressing Ctrl + F on the keyboard and typing in the following: !!!!UPDATE!!!! _________________ |Legal Disclaimer | |_________________|___________________________________________________________ |Copyright © 2005-2006 Aurabolt10 | | | |GameFAQs Username: Aurabolt10 | | | |This may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, | |private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed | |publicly. Use of this guide on any web site other than | | or as a part of any public display is strictly | |prohibited, and a violation of copyright. | | | |All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their | |respective trademark and copyright holders. | |_____________________________________________________________________________| ############################################################################## I. Introduction ############################################################################## Hey, I'm Jeff. I wrote a Madden 2005 FAQ that you may or may not have read, it's posted on GameFAQs: http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/gamecube/file/madden_nfl_2005_a.txt Since 06 is quite similar to 05, I didn't write a whole new FAQ for 06. Instead, I decided to write this team management guide. If there's anything you'd like to see or know or learn, just email me at aurabolt12@aim.com -or- AIM me up: Aurabolt12 ############################################################################## II. General Team Management ############################################################################## Alright the main goal of Franchise mode is to build a strong, long-living team. A dynasty. Weak teams move players around and trade and release them, but strong teams keep players for more than two years. The ideal player life in the NFL is to be drafted by a team, start, learn and progress until they are ready to retire, and retire from the team they were drafted by. This is how it used to be in the old days but in modern-day and Madden, it is a rarity. You will have a huge advantage over the other teams if you can make this dream a reality. DEPTH CHART ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Press X while in the depth chart screen (remember I have GameCube, haha) to auto-reorder the depth chart for all positions. Now, cycle through each position and check to see if all the starters you want to start are starting. If there are two players with close overall ratings, for example... MLB: Random Guy - 78 OVR, 29 years old Some Dude - 76 OVR, 24 years old In this position, I would start Some Dude because he is younger and is only two points lower than Random Guy. Some Dude should progress at least two points in five years as a starter, and probably more. He has a lot more playing time to come for him in the NFL, but Random Guy is getting old and he's only 78 OVR, he won't be around too much longer, maybe five years. However, Some Dude will play for about ten more. Take these things into consideration when organizing your depth chart. After going through all the positions (and getting to know your team better), also be sure to check your KOS (kickoff specialist) and see if it's the kicker because I hate it when they put the punter in there. PROGRESSION ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If players perform well during preseason, and the regular season/playoffs, they will Progress in their attribute points. Check Rosters > Progression after preseason is over, Week 5, Week 11, and Week 17. Also check it after every round of the playoffs if you make it in. And of course, after the Super Bowl! ############################################################################## III. Salary Cap ############################################################################## You're in the middle of a season and you go to View Roster and you peek at your cap room. A beautiful $289K shows up. You shudder at what the offseason will bring. Panic? Absolutely not. Take a breath and let's get through this together. So you have low cap room. Let's fix it. Go into View Roster and move the cursor over to the right a few clicks so you can see some new values. TOT: Total Salary BON: Signing Bonus SAL: Salary Cap Usage. <-- This is very important to look at. YRL: Years Left in contract AGE: Age <-- Also important. So you're still asking "wTf dO i Do bOUt myC ap rooOm!?!?!321121111!!?!" Sort the players by their Salary Cap usage. (press X). At the top you should see a familiar, strong, excellent player. If you don't then you have major problems. This is the guy who you are paying the most... well, not exactly, but that's the way I think of it. You pay a player based on how much Cap he takes up. Press A on this guy. You'll see who he is and stuff. Press Left/Right on the C-Stick to find his Contract stats. Usually, this guy is someone you'll want to keep because he's mad good. Now is where I start to "find" some Cap room and build my dynasty. OK, this guy you're looking at better be a star, or close to it. You're going to keep this guy until he retires, because he is crucial to your team. First, check your team's Cap Room and remember this number. Then, go to Re-Sign Player and we'll restructure his contract. As a player's Contract Length (years) increases, the Cap Room he eats up goes DOWN. This is super important. Offer him a 7-year contract. Look at the Cap Room near the top of the screen. This number represents what your Cap Room will be if the player accepts the contract shown right now. Since his contract is for more years than he had, the cap room should go up at least a little. If not, try doing this with a different player with a high SAL value. Now go to the Signing Bonus and increase or decrease it until you see the Cap Room go UP. Keep going until you find that the Cap Room maxes out. If you go too far, the Cap Room will start going down again; stay where it's the absolute highest. Every hundredth of a Million dollars counts!! If your player already denies the contract (red bar at the top of the screen), just do the best you can. 98% of the time, this won't happen, though. After you've maxed out the Cap Room by adjusting the Bonus, go to Salary. Start DECREASING this value (hold control stick to the left). Keep going down and your Cap should go up some more. To move faster, hold both the control stick and control pad to the left. If you REALLY need to go faster, you can do this with more than one controller plugged in! Eventually, your player will deny the contract and his bar will turn red. Just adjust the Salary to the minimum value while the bar is still green, then Offer the contract (bottom option in this screen). BAM! you should have a little higher Cap room now, and the player you signed will stay with you for the next 7 years. Next, try doing this for other high- paid players that you don't intend to get rid of anytime soon. What about for players you don't want to keep, but they still have years left on their contract? Well, for me, I have no problem clearing Cap Penalties because I think they are stupid. If you'd rather be realistic, you can just wait out his contract so he can be released for Free from your team. However, I think you shouldn't be penalized for releasing a player. If you release a player that you don't want, it will say something about a Cap Penalty. Cap Penalties are not cool. If you have some, when your next year starts, that value will be taken off your Cap Room, even though you aren't paying anyone the money (basically you're paying a phantom player). To clear these with no problems, go to My Team > Team Info and press the X button and select OK to clear them. But you don't have to if you want to stay 100% realistic. OK, your Cap should be a little higher now. Remember, any player you want to keep for awhile, re-sign him for 7 years and use the method previously described. If you have any more questions or whatever, contact me. ############################################################################## IV. Off-Season ############################################################################## After the Pro Bowl, select Advance to Off-Season. The game will progress the coaches at this time. Here are the menus you are about to progress through: FRANCHISE OWNER MODE: OFF-SEASON ....................... Off-Season Menu Storyline Central My Team Staffing Set Prices Stadium Information My Franchise OFF-SEASON MENU ...................... Schedule Storyline Central Rosters My Team Stats/Info My Franchise OFF-SEASON SCHEDULE ...................... Retired Players Restricted Free Agents Re-Sign Players Rookie Scouting NFL Draft Sign Draft Picks Free Agent Signing Re-Order Depth Charts Start New Season Franchise Owner Mode: Off-Season ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Now is when you would move the team to a new city, build a new stadium, or upgrade the stadium (you can do all this through the "STADIUM" option in the Owner Mode Menu). If you'd like a detailed section in here telling about moving your team, let me know. I think it might be self-explainatory, though. Staffing ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This is where you can hire/fire your coaches: Head coach, offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, and special teams coodinator. Go to Sign Coaches and look on the right of the screen and if you have a little stop sign over one of the coaches, you'll need to sign or re-sign a someone. For signing coaches, the most important stat, besides, obviously, offense for Off. Coordinators and Defense for D. Coordinators... is MOT (motivation). This will basically artificially increase your players' awareness (AWR) throughout the season. Also, when offering contracts, don't be afraid to spend some cash on your coaches. $4M or $5M will not hurt your overall cash. Besides, you can still spend as much as you want, even if you are in the red/negative. When you're done with signing coaches, press Start and advance to see all the old geezers. Retired Players ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ You can scroll through this list to see who has retired (completely removed from the franchise). They don't come back out of retirement but sometimes the pros will come back as coaches. Make sure you check your own team specifically to see if you have lost anyone important. Then press Start when you're done. Restricted Free Agents ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ These are the players that are mediocre. If you don't re-sign them, they will be released. If you offer them too little money for their contract, another team may outbid you and instead just give you a low-round draft pick for them or something. It's not terribly important. If you want to keep the player(s) then re-sign them with a healthy-sized contract. If not, don't even offer them anything and they will be cut from your team and put into the free agent pool. Re-Signing Players ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ !!!!UPDATE!!!! Taken from the Madden NFL 06 Boards on May 29, posted by Speshial K: "The franchise tag gives the player a 1year contract where he makes the average of the top5 players in his position's salary. It's good if you want to trade him, because you wont take any cap penalties." !!!!END UPDATE!!!! Next is Re-Signing Players. Your roster will be sorted according to how many years they have left on their contract (YRL). Anyone with 0 that you do NOT resign will be released from your team into the Free Agent pool. Before resigning anyone, take a peek at your cap room. Using this, you should figure that each player you resign will take, at most, about $5M or $6M. However, some players might actually free up some cap room if you use the previously-mentioned strategy for signing/re-signing players. Keep some Cap room for the NFL draft to sign some young guys! I suggest releasing anyone over 30 who isn't starting on your team. Make sure you choose "RELEASE" when the pop-up window comes. Rookie Scouting ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This is where you scout the next class of rookies to be drafted. I'm actually kind of embarrassed to say that I never use this. I wasted an hour back in '04 just to find out that all the information you need is available on draft day, even if you didn't actually scout anyone. If you do decide you want to take advantage of this feature, choose 3-5 positions that you think you'll draft and scout a couple random players in each position (don't scout all the first round ones because they will be gone by the time the later rounds come about). Then, scroll over to your TARGETS and re-scout all 15 again, for three scouting rounds. Then, go to the NFL Draft. Scouting rookies most importantly lets you know if a player will be a bust or a gem. Also, some of the information (Pass Block, Run Power, etc., etc.) might be off or wrong; scouting the player reveals these flaws. For example, your scout might say "His speed is ridiuculously overrated." This means even though he runs a 4.21 40, he won't really be that fast. NFL Draft ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Alriiiiight the draft! This is for filling in roster positions that may have been lost due to a retired player. Also, you can draft a young player in a position where you have an old guy (32 years old or more), since he will be stepping in when he retires. Quick Tip: Don't be afraid to exit the NFL Draft screen at any time, even after players have been drafted. You won't lose anything. I frequently go back to check my rosters and Breakdown. The reason we didn't Scout any rookies is because all the information you need, (I need) is already given. Start the draft. Press Z, then R to make the draft speed Fastest. When it's your turn, take a look at who's available. You should be going in to the draft already knowing what position you're looking for, especially if a star just retired. If no one retired, you might want to draft a fast WR or CB, since Speed can't be increased in Player Progression. Most of the players' attributes are given to you. Highlight a player and hold Z and press A. (You can cycle through players by pressing up/down in this window. Very useful.)His information will come up. His name, position etc. are in the upper right corner. Then, if, for example, he's a QB, you'll see: Throwing Arm: (THP), Pass Accuracy: (THA), and at the bottom, Interview: (AWR). These three attributes will mostly determine the QB's physical skill. Other attributes, when checking out other positions, are: Bench Reps (STR), Cone Drill (ACC), Shuttle Drill (AGI), Interview (AWR), Hands (CTH), Vertical (JMP), and 40 Time (SPD). Remember, players can NEVER progress their speed or strength attributes, so drafting based on speed/strength is smart. The ratings are as follows, from best to worst: Amazing, Great, Good, Above Average, Average, Below Average, Bad, Terrible. You may also, on the main draft screen, press left/right on the C stick to view the Advice board. For me they usually tell me to get an OT, I don't know why. You should look at your Breakdown and draft the positions that are the weakest first, or that you had a noticable problem with during the season. Don't listen/pay attention to BOOs or CHEERs. They only mean if you drafted a player earlier/later than his Projected round and has nothing to do with how good/bad the player is. I've drafted a 84 OVR Center in the 5th round and they BOO'd me... stupid crowd. Signing Draft Picks ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ !!!!UPDATE!!!! Thanks to the Madden 06 boards on GameFAQs, I've learned a lot about signing rookies. Instead of signing all your picks to find out their OVR, simply draft who you want, then cut them all. In the Sign Free Agents part of the off-season, move the C-Stick until your PDA at the top of the screen shows "Our Draft Picks". Then, find them in the Free Agent pool with all their stats! This is much more effective because you don't have to waste your time on crappy 68 OVR draft picks. However, the downside to this is that you may be more reluctant to sign young players, therefore increasing the overall age of your team; this isn't good. You need young blood that will be able to progress. !!!!END UPDATE!!!! You will see all the players you have just drafted, including their draft number and which round they were chosen. You are not forced to sign all the players you draft; you can cut them all if you'd like (they will be placed in the Free Agent pool and be available for any team to sign in the off-season, though). For rookies, you shouldn't use the pre-mentioned strategy, because you don't know their stats/attributes until after you've signed them. So, I usually go with the default contract length and terms just to see their OVR; then, I release them from my team if they are a total waste. Different from previous Maddens, rookies in 06 are noticably better. They used to be 60s and 70s, with someone 80 or above if you got amazingly lucky. This year, only 6th and 7th round picks are in the 60s; usually, even, I get all my rookies 70+ OVR and the top couple even 80+. I read somewhere on the GameFAQs Madden 06 boards that they did this because CPU teams were drafting 67 OVR players and starting them, making their team pathetic, so EA was forced to make the rookies a little better. Free Agent Signing ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Free Agents, in off-season, are much better than during regular season, because other teams will have released players who are asking for too much money, usually 85+ OVR veterans. It would be smart to snag a veteran in a position that needs some leadership, or you could just randomly sign someone if you especially like that player. Be careful, though, of their SAL (Salary Cap) value, they might be too expensive for what they're worth. When you've placed an offer to a player, look at their green bar. The greener and bigger the bar is, the more they want to accept your contract offer. If the player is someone you know will be starting, use the method described in Section III: Salary Cap. If not, take the default contract and click the signing bonus or salary up a bit, just to put you ahead of anyone else who may offer this player a contract. Reminds me of eBay :) Just keep track of your Cap Room, which is conveniently placed on this screen. When you've made all the offers to players you want to try to get, press START and advance one day. It takes a long time to simulate this part of the off- season, so be patient. If you don't want to or can't afford anyone, just say "All" and wait a couple minutes for the CPU teams to negotiate players to their teams. If you're good, you'll receive a pop-up saying that you've signed a player. The off-season is almost over! Re-Order Depth Charts ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The last event in the off-season. Firstly, press X to auto-reorder your depth chart. Now, go through each position and check if they are how you want. Refer to Section II: Depth Chart to finish this part up. Remember, rookies progress much better in their first couple years in the NFL than if they sit the bench for that long. Starting a high 70s or better rookie may be risky for a little bit, but if he performs decently, he will progress and be a BEAST in a short amount of time. Start New Season ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Whoooooo!!! You're done! Good job. Start the next season, progress your players through training camp and preseason, and continue building your dynasty team. ############################################################################## V. Trading Draft Picks ############################################################################## This is considered cheating for some super-hardcore-legit Madden players. But, I don't think so and I thought it was significant so I added this section. Basically, the CPU values draft picks differently than you would. For example, if you were to go 5-0 during the regular season (right before the Trading Deadline) and go to Trade Block and offer your first round pick for another first round pick, every team including the Cardinals who went 0-5, would offer you theirs. As you know, teams with a better record draft AFTER crappier teams. Therefore.. After messing around with Trade Block and Draft Picks for about twenty minutes, I ended up with these as my draft picks, without losing or gaining a single player on my roster (only traded with draft picks): Round 1 Round 1 Round 1 Round 1 Round 3 Round 7 Here's how to do it: 1) Go through five games in the regular season. Don't sim any of week 6 but finish week 5. 2) Go to Play Week > Standings. Check who has the worst record in the league, because chances are they will continue sucking and you will get their early draft pick. Remember the teams with the lowest 4 records. 3) Go to Rosters > Trade Block. 4) New Offer. Press Z+L to get to your draft picks, you should have 1-7. Offer your first round and ask for a Round 1 Pick in return. 5) Select View Offers. You *should* see almost, if not every team in the league taking up your offer. Select one of the 4 worst teams. 6) Go over to their side, this is what they are giving you in the trade. Press Z+L to get to their draft picks. Select Round 2 pick so it will be added to what they will give you. 7) You should still have the meter green (acceptable). Now, try adding their third round. They might deny; if so, remove the third round and try for a fourth. Continue this procedure until you can get three picks and still have the bar green. 8) Press Start to accept the trade. Voila! You just got a 1st, 2nd and 4th round draft pick, by only trading your first! Imagine the possibilities... 9) Now is when you have to mess around. Make a lot of new proposals, but just make sure you get 3 draft picks in return every time. Eventually, you will have many low-round picks, like round 5 for instance. Trade three round 5's for a round 4. 10) Repeat steps 4-8 until you are satisfied with your draft picks. 11) You could also trade your newly acquired picks for players; round 1 picks are valuable! As I said before, this is *kind of* cheating, it just depends on how you look at it. Realistically, this wouldn't happen, but the game legitimately lets you so I say it's fair. But you can do whatever you want.. I just thought I'd put this in here since I like sharing my knowledge.. :) ############################################################################## VI. Thanks/Goodbye ############################################################################## Thanks for reading this FAQ that I wrote for you! Thanks to Electronic Arts for making this sweet game! Thanks to CJayC for posting this document for you to read and for creating/maintaining the best website on the internet: GameFAQs! Thanks to Speshial K for his information about the Franchise Tag. Author: Aurabolt10 Email: Aurabolt12@aim.com AIM: Aurabolt12 Written for the Nintendo GameCube version. File Started: Wednesday, December 14, 2005 at 11:33 A.M. Last Updated: Monday, May 29, 2006 at 4:57 P.M. _________________ |Legal Disclaimer | |_________________|___________________________________________________________ |Copyright © 2005-2006 Aurabolt10 | | | |GameFAQs Username: Aurabolt10 | | | |This may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, | |private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed | |publicly. Use of this guide on any web site other than | | or as a part of any public display is strictly | |prohibited, and a violation of copyright. | | | |All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their | |respective trademark and copyright holders. | |_____________________________________________________________________________| See ya dude. _____________________________________ / ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ _ _____ / / | 0 | | | 0 | 0 | 0_| | |_ _| / {{ |_|_|___|_\_|_|_|_0_|___|___|_| \ \ / \____________________________________\ << E N D O F F I L E >>