Madden 23 Franchise Mode tips

Scouting, Free Agency, and more tips for Madden 23 Franchise Mode

As is tradition, Madden 23 Franchise Mode lets you control the Head Coach, Star Player, or Team Owner to micromanage your team all the way to the top spot. The formula has been changed up a little for this year’s pigskin-athon, so let’s jump into some tips to up your game.

First off, here are the key differences between the game modes:

• Head Coach – The standard Franchise mode. Call plays, draft plays, make trades, conduct negotiations, and scout for fresh talent.

• Player – You only control a single player on a single team. It’s basically Face of the Franchise, but with some minor tweaks.

• Owner – Manage and coach your team as you do when you’re a coach. The main difference here is that you’re also able to relocate your team, which you can’t do when you’re a Head Coach or Player.

Once you’ve chosen who you want to play as, you can then choose between Staff Builder or Team Builder to decide which upgrade path is most important for your play style.

OK, that’s the housekeeping done – let’s dive into some Franchise Mode tips.

Focus Players

With Focus Players, you start off with three slots and you’ll want to make sure these are occupied by the players you most want to work on. You can unlock more slots later if you choose the After School Tutoring talent.

Staff Management

Make sure to hit your weekly and seasonal goals to unlock XP, get staff points, and fill out your talent trees. Below you can find some recommendations on where to branch out.

Head Coach

• Player Growth – prioritize unlocking The Final Piece. This allows you to count your players as Scheme Fits during training sessions.

• Staff Modifications – as soon as you’ve unlocked The Final Piece, set your sights on After School Tutoring to unlock more Focus Player slots.

Offensive Coordinator

• On The Block – get the X-Factor On talent as soon as possible.

• Practice Makes Perfect – the final priority talent is Concentration, which boosts your Catch stat for wide receivers and tight ends by five.

Don’t worry too much about which sides of talents you take, but you’re better off maximizing strengths than trying to make up for weaknesses.

Once you’ve got these priority talents, go for whatever feels right.

Scouting

Make sure your scouts have solid coverage in terms of position expertise.

If a scout isn’t working out, fire them and hire a new one.

When you’re asked to set your scouting focus, make sure to set your scout to match up with the region you’re recruiting from.

If you’re after a solid Wide Receiver, setting your National Focus to Wide Receiver will give you more information when it’s time to make a choice. Go for players who are rated A or above.

Free Agency

This area got a massive overhaul for Madden 23, adding in a new concept called Motivation. This is an indicator of how likely a player is to join your team through Free Agency.

If you can’t meet their Motivation requirements, recruiting players will be a struggle. Of course, a bunch of money can overcome most issues.

Oh, and since you can only have five active negotiations at once, make sure you’re only going for players you really want. 

If you want more, why not reminisce with our list of every Madden cover athlete?