Female coaches introduced for the first time in Madden NFL 25

Madden NFL 25 is finally catching up with the increasing number of women coaches in NFL

Madden NFL / EA Sports

Each year, the number of women on the sidelines during NFL games increases, and Madden NFL 25 is finally catching up because — for the first time —  you will have the chance to play as a female coach.

“Right now, you see female coaches as part of the coaching staff,” Connor Dougan, senior design director for Madden, says. “As someone who’s making games, we need to represent that.”

In 2015, Jen Welter became the first female coaching intern in the NFL during training camp and the preseason with the Arizona Cardinals. Since then, we have seen even more incredible women join the ever-growing list that includes Katie Sowers, Jennifer King, Lori Locust, Kathryn Smith, and more, as the NFL continues to push beyond tradition. 

“If you’re playing Franchise Mode and you want to create a female coach, you have the right to do that,” Dougan says, before teasing, “It’s really just the beginning. I think there’s a lot more opportunities to push there when it comes to representation in Madden in the future.”

For Josh Looman, who returned to Madden after spending five years away, this change is personal. 

“Nobody loves franchise more than I do,” Looman says as he steps up to unveil this year’s pillars of Franchise Mode: Immersion, Customization and Depth & Core Improvements. 

When we speak following the presentation, he cannot wait to share what bringing female coaches into the game means for him.

“My daughter plays football. She’s a quarterback, and she loves the idea that we’re going to do this year,” he says. “She’s so fired up about it because there’s such a huge movement with younger girls in school playing flag football, and they love it.” 

Looman shares that his daughter “has girls she plays with in middle school right now that don’t play basketball or volleyball or any other sports. They are on national teams playing in tournaments, Las Vegas, playing football”. 

During the presentation, Dougan and the team behind Madden NFL 25 kept repeating one word: authenticity. It is the ethos behind this year’s game and a word that resurfaces as each developer discusses their respective specialty.  

“Like Connor said, it’s authentic,” Looman says. “There are female coaches right now on NFL teams. I’ve worked with Jen Welter over the years who’s done a lot of stuff with NFL teams, and it’s our responsibility to make sure that that’s captured.”

Reddit threads as far back as two years ago have been demanding this change. One user even said, “I am not going to buy Madden if they don’t allow female coaches”, but now the wait is over, and, hopefully, it is just the beginning of what is possible for representation in Madden NFL.