One of the best features going into the Madden season had to be the addition of online franchise.  With online franchise you and 31 of your best online buddies can go through 10 seasons playing with your favorite team and building a dynasty.  Unfortunately in my opinion online franchise has not lived up to my expectations.  With the instability of online, the lack of salary cap, and players raping the Free Agent pool at will and dumb trades I find it really bad at times.

Let me first say that I’m in 2 Online Franchises and both of them are different.

1. dc vs pg (PS3) Chicago Bears (6-1) Second Season

I was asked to be in this franchise from a friend who I used to play against in an offline league in Maryland.  I don’t know why I chose Chicago, but I didn’t have many choices as all the good teams were taken by the time I signed up.  For some reason the commissioner of this league decided to put the game speed on fast and that took a lot to adjust to at the beggining. but I’ve adjusted well.  In this league there are 16 user teams, and there are no trades with the computer (thank god). We are in our second season and I made it to the NFC Championship game and lost to the eventual Super Bowl Champion. I was really looking forward to the off-season, because I think that’s what online franchises are all about. In the rookie draft I needed a corner and luckily for me everyone was trying to get linebackers and the best corner in the draft as far as I was concerned was still on the board. His name is Julian Craft and he’s a A potential and 73 OVR. He leads the league in interceptions (4) already.

2. no glitching league (PS3) Green Bay Packers (3-0) Draft

I really like this league because it was a draft league and we got to draft our players.  This adds a whole new dimension to the franchise aspect.  Unfortunately I was unable to draft my team as the owner told everyone the draft was starting except for me.  In fact from talking to a lot of people in the league, there were many members who did not draft their team fully as some missed the first 3-4 rounds.  Although I didn’t pick my team I was happy with what the computer did.  The computer will get you a nice offensive line and I can’t say that for some of the humans that picked.  I think guys are so enamored with names they know that they missed out on great players like Clady, Gross (both offensive linemens).  Nonetheless I had a great offensive line but I didn’t like my running backs who were Edgerin James, Maurice Morris, and Mwelde Moore.  And my QB is Leftwich and Clemens, so trades were in order.  I did get Fitzgerald and TJ Housh as WR.  My defense is solid with Joey Porter and Vrabel at LB and Antonio Pierce at MLB.

Disconnects/Online Stability

Anyone who has an Online Franchise has probably been faced with them trying to connect to the franchise server and it being unavailable from time to time.  The thing about it, the server seems to always be up but sometimes it takes 3 or 4 times to actually get access to it.  One of the biggest problems I see is the disconnects that happen on the server.  You really can’t tell who’s fault it is.  I’ve seen one person who looked like he started a game against the computer 6 times.  Was it all connection or was he losing and decided to pull the plug.  I was playing a guy in my Franchise 2 league and I was up 24-3 going into the 3rd and I got the “Your opponent has quit, do you want to continue vs. the CPU”.  I didn’t think he quit because I know him and he wouldn’t do that.  So I ended the game and we decided to play again and I was up 7 with 1:00 left and it happened again.  Ok this is a little disturbing.  We then decided to play in two days and he came out with a whole new playbook, routes that left uncovered WR and some nanos.  So after dominating him and getting disconnected twice, I end up losing by 3 and no disconnect this time.  There needs to be a way that the server can save a game to stop this kind of stuff.  What happens when someone is playing the computer or a player and their QB or Franchise RB gets injured and is carted off the field.  What’s stopping a player from just pulling the plug or quitting so that their player is still playing.  Nothing.  Just like nothing is stopping a player from quitting if they are losing.  There has to be a way to fix this, to keep track of a game progress so when you start it again you pick up where you left off.  I just saw the other day, someone started a game 9 times.  9 times, cmon’ EA let’s stop this kind of foolishness.  The computer is tough to some guys on All-Madden, so let them get that L and move on.  People are so scared of losing, it’s not even funny.

Trades & Free Agent Pickups

The beauty about franchise is the ability to trade your players to get better.  Some guys like my friend Garry who is in both of the leagues I’m in is soooo enthusiastic about trading players to a point where he gets worked up about it.  He calls people and asked them about trades every day.  I told him that this is a franchise and if you are a couple of people away from what you think you need, get it in the draft.  He doesn’t want to wait that long.  After the week 6 trade deadline he is trying to get the commissioner to hurry the league up so he can get back to trading.  It’s really funny the way he acts, he wants the GM of the year award bad … I’ve put off telling him that there is no award … lol.

I’m glad that there is no trading with the computer in my leagues cause I think people would just rape the computer teams like they do the Free Agency. 

Tip: Before you go into the rookie draft, drop people you no longer want on your team cause if you don’t the CPU will.  I was the bears and because I drafted a rookie WR, the computer let go of Johhny Knox and someone picked him up via Free Agency.

Playing Styles

 With so many players in my draft league (24) you have to deal with many playing styles.  I’ve noticed that in my league there are few players that run the ball.  In fact the guy who has AP has only rushed him 8 times in 3 games, seems like a waste.  If a person doesn’t have a fast RB where they can sweep you to death then they don’t tend to run that much.  I would draft according to your needs.  In my franchise league I traded Larry Fitzgerald, Mwelde Moore, and Edgerin James for Ronnie Brown, Jermichael Finely, and Andre Caldwell.  It was a good deal for me because I like to run and Ronnie Brown is a top 5 back.  I also run big sets, so getting a fast TE was also a plus.  Some people I noticed in my franchise league do not want to trade with certain guys cause they don’t want to make that team better.  They miss out on guys they could use because they are focusing on other people and not their own team.

EA Make Franchise Better

It’s going to be very interesting to see what they do for Franchise next year.  Here are my top wishlist for Franchise: