It's been a long time coming, but it finally happened. I finished franchise mode.
I had heard for years that it was possible but had never seen it happen. The mode ends after 30 years and I don't think I ever got past 15. I would usually get bored once the actual players all retired and you were just left with randomly generated guys. But this time I threw in a twist. I would also play NCAA football side by side and import my draft class in each year. I decided on doing this all on the '08 version of both games. The reason? It's the only year I had both games. Nice and simple.
Full disclosure, I am not going to finish my NCAA dynasty through to the end, that runs 60 years and it's just not going to happen. Honestly, I just don't like the NCAA games as much as I do Madden. For one, I, like any good Northeasterner, don't really care all that much about college football. Who am I going to root for, Rutgers? I used to live about 10 minutes from High Point Solutions Stadium (or whatever it's called now) and I never, not once was able to get one of their games on TV. Anyway, that's a different issue for a different day. Even if I was a diehard NCAA football fan, I always found the games to be a little too unbalanced. Games are either too frustrating with excessive drops and tit-for-tat A.I. with turnovers or too easy once you have high rated players that can get around the edge. But Madden, at least the 6th gen editions, are 10/10's for me. I think '04, '08 and '09 are the best but I really don't think there is that big a difference between them outside the details. I am a pretty big fan of sports games in general, especially those that have strong franchise modes and I think Madden does it as well as any series (at least it used to). It may be in my top 10 games in terms of hours played, I think it definitively would be after this. I started this franchise a few weeks before my son was born...and he's about to turn seven. It was a lot of time and a lot of work for an in-game popup notification congratulating me for completing franchise mode. You would think there would be some kind of cutscene, maybe interviewing some GMs or coaches (Belichick: What the F*** is that camera doing here. Get it out of my office!). It would have been nice to hear some thoughts on your performance, something, anything at all.
Anyway, I guess before I get started, I should talk a little bit about the self-imposed rules I always put on myself before starting Franchise mode. These are things I have always just kind of done to give myself what I feel is the best and most interesting experience. First, I never pick my own team (the Giants, for the record) because I get too invested and angry about games. That also means no rivals, so no Philly, no Dallas and no Washington. I also prefer playing as bottom half teams and trying to build them into contenders. I have never seen the appeal in taking an already great team and keeping them great. No Steelers, no Colts (remember, we're still in the Manning era), no Packers (still in the Favre era) or Patriots. The Chargers, Ravens, Saints, Broncos, Bears and Seahawks are all out. So, all the other teams went into the hopper, each with an equal chance to be my team for the next 30 years. And the power of RNG landed me in northern Florida.
In terms of ratings, the Jags were about as good as I was going to get, I think they had an overall rating of a 86 and I did my cutoff at 87. Not going to lie, I was kind of hoping for someone worse. Anyway, the actual '08 Jaguars had a pretty solid defense and two great running backs in Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew. Unfortunately, they were hit with the injury bug and ended up disappointing with a 5-11 record. I believe this was the year that David Garrard took over for Byron Leftwich as their starting QB. Both guys are on the roster here, with Leftwich being rated slightly higher. The receivers were a bit of a mess, all were okay but none were great. Matt Jones was the highest rated, and the virtual version of MJ didn't have the same fondness for a certain white powder that the real one did so he at least played the whole season. The line was strong, anchored by center and long-time franchise standout Brad Meester. The biggest strength of the team was in the interior defensive line, with John Henderson and Marcus Stroud holding ratings in the 90's. Linebacker Mike Peterson manned the middle, with a solid secondary featuring corners Rashean Mathis and Brian Williams backed up by safeties Reggie Nelson and Donovan Darius. So yeah, it could have been worse. I figured I would roll with it and see where I was at the trade deadline...and it wasn't going well. I was a bit out of practice and got a little too big for my britches playing on all-Madden straight out of the gate. Sitting at 2-4, I decided to make some moves, the biggest of which involved sending Stroud to the Bills for their first-round pick (a rare instance of my franchise aping something that actually happened, the Jaguars did in fact trade Marcus Stroud to Buffalo in '08, but it was after the season and for 3rd and 5th round picks, not a first). I also moved some other smaller pieces for late round picks. The Patriots hoisted the Lombardi Trophy (their 4th in this timeline), I ended up finishing 6-10, setting myself up for a big offseason.
The first order of business: moving the team. I always liked this feature of franchise mode and I wanted to take advantage of it here. I ended up moving to Los Angeles, at this point still without a team. I also decided to switch up the uniforms, ditching the teal look for a black and white uniform combination. There would be one more season in Jacksonville before the move, and the plan would be for a slight rebuild. Leftwich and Taylor would leave in free agency, while Darius would retire. I made another franchise altering move, this time shipping MJD off to Cleveland for 1st and 4th round picks in the next year's draft. The regular season went off about as expected, with a 10-6 finish and a wildcard berth, with a lockdown defense and competent play from Garrard keeping the offense moving. The AFC South still belonged to Peyton Manning, though this would be the last year, the Colts would take the crown. Manning would leave Indy in the offseason after we upset his Colts in the divisional round. He would finish his career not in Denver, but Baltimore, playing a few more years with the Ravens. I lost the AFC championship game to a loaded San Diego team, as I had no answer for their offense. The bird brains did though, and Philly got its first Super Bowl title a few years early. This offseason would kick off a series of strong drafts, as I brought in what would become the core of a Jags dynasty. The next few drafts would see the selection of WR Greg Hughes out of Michigan, LG Martin Bryant out of Penn State, SS Brett Tatum out of USC, OLB Heath Ingrahm out of Cal, DT Anthony Duckett out of Texas and HB Terry Thomas out of Boise State. Have to love those RNG names the NCAA games came up with. But the two most important picks were QB Patrick Marshall out of Ball State, who would be my franchise QB for the next 13 years after beating out Garrard in a training camp battle, and DE Chris Thompson out of Ohio State, who would become the most dominant defensive player of his era. Thompson would shatter Michael Strahan's single season sack record (22.5 and don't you forget it) in his third year, posting 27. He would go on to similarly obliterate Bruce Smith's all-time record (an even 200), finishing with 233.
The next year I fell in the AFC Championship again, Marshall's rookie of the year season ended on a sour note as he threw multiple picks against the Jets. Gang green would fall to New Orleans in the Super Bowl, the last one that wouldn't feature us for a long time. The next year the Jags, coached by Jim Johnson, would claim their first Lombardi, finishing 13-3, finally getting over the hump by beating the Jets in an AFC title game rematch before denying the Saints a repeat bid. The next year was even better, the first undefeated, 19-0 season in league history. Marshall would win MVP, Thompson would be defensive player of the year and we would crush the NFC Champion 49ers to clinch a repeat. Another first, a three-peat, would come the next year, a 15-1 finish culminating with a victory in a rematch with San Francisco (albeit much closer this time around). This was when we started to hit a bit of a lull. Division championships were all but a given, the Colts were still reeling from Manning's departure, the Texans still couldn't find a QB and the Titans were on their way to becoming a dumpster fire (they would remain as such for the entirety of the 30 years). But the Jags players from the original roster were getting long in the tooth. Peterson would retire first and draft pick Mark Madsen out of Tennessee would pick up where he left off. But Henderson finally hanging them up left the defense soft in the middle and I was never truly able to find CBs that could suitably replace Mathis or Williams. This is where my Jags first starting morphing from a defensive juggernaut into an all-out offensive machine. Marshall's numbers would improve, but getting back to the big game would prove challenging. The Jets, 49ers and Packers were the next three Super Bowl winners as the landscape of the NFL had completely changed. Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Drew Brees would all retire, leaving something of a power vacuum. The Jags were now a top tier NFL team, along with Washington, San Fran, Detroit (yes, Detroit), San Diego and the Jets. Traditional powers like the Steelers and Patriots were in shambles while the Eagles kind of slipped back into mediocrity. Tampa Bay, Atlanta, KC, Baltimore and Cleveland also found themselves contending for titles, but not nearly as consistently as the other group. Some combination of that power six group would win the next 8 super bowls. Washington and San Francisco would trade off winning the next four, the Jets would get another and the Lions would get their first before we added our 4th title, this time under coach Kurt Warner. The AFC championship in San Diego was a barn burner, with 89 combined points, but we demolished a just-happy-to-be-there Falcons squad in the Super Bowl. This would be the end of yet another era for the Jaguars.
The 2022 season was going as planned, we clinched the AFC south in week 12 and rolled into the final week of the season with a record of 13-2. A matchup with the lowly Texans seemed like a perfect chance to rest the starters, but there was one major problem. The Jets and Chiefs were also 13-2, so a first-round bye was at stake. As such, I left my starters in, a decision that proved to be franchise altering. Because on an innocuous 3rd & 2, leading 14-6 in the 3rd quarter, Patrick Marshall rolled out to the left on a play action to scramble for a first down. He passed the sticks but took a huge hit from a Texans defender on the play. Then came the dreaded injury popup. These are common in Madden, but what happened next is not. "Injury Severity: Career Ending." In year 13, he probably didn't have much longer to play anyway, but this still wasn't how I wanted to see a 4x Super Bowl champ and face of the franchise go out. It also killed any momentum we had going into the playoffs, we were able to sneak past a decent Miami squad in the divisional round but were simply out manned in the AFC championship, losing a defensive struggle on a snowy day at MetLife stadium to the eventual champion Jets. Thompson would also retire in the offseason, leaving the Los Angeles Jaguars without their two most visible and important players. Our longest tenured player and last original LA Jaguar, TE Marcedes Lewis, also called it quits. All of the players from those franchise altering drafts began to slowly but surely hang up their cleats (except Bryant, who would play into his 40s). Some of these players were able to be replaced relatively efficiently, WR Brad Thomas and Ts Willie MacMillan and Andrew Jefferson would go on to become cornerstones, but others were a struggle to move on from. Once Thompson retired, I was never able to generate an efficient pass rush again. I was, however, able to move on effectively from Marshall, as a trade up to the 10th overall pick would net me the only QB with a first-round grade in the 2023 draft: Blake McCarty out of Oklahoma State.
McCarty would hit the ground running, winning rookie of the year honors and leading the Jags to the playoffs with an 11-5 record. We fell to the eventual champion Chiefs in the divisional round, but I was okay with that after so much turnover the previous offseason. The next year was proof that the Jags reload rather than we build, as McCarty won his first MVP en route to a super bowl berth. This would kick off the first of three years in which we would face the Buccaneers in the big game, with Tampa coming out on top this time. The next year was more of the same, offense was a little worse but the defense was much better. The core of the team remained intact for our repeat run with one exception: Warner retired as coach in the offseason. In his place, defensive coordinator and franchise legend Mike Peterson was promoted to lead the team. I always thought it was cool that retired players came back as coaches if you got far enough into franchise mode, by the end of the 30 years Peterson, Brees, Brady, Darius, Derrick Brooks, Joe Thomas, Mike Vrabel, Johnathan Vilma, Donovan McNabb and Chad Johnson had all ascended to head coaching positions. I really, really would love to see what an actual NFL squad coached by Ocho Cinco would look like. Anyway, we were able to win the rubber match with the Bucs for our second straight, and 6th, Super Bowl title. The defense of that title didn't go as planned, we lost a heartbreaker in the divisional round as the 9-7 Broncos kicked a last second field goal to beat us at home (they would make it to the Super Bowl and lose to the Lions). The core of the team fell apart after this season, with most of the key players either retiring or moving on in free agency, this kind of started the third and final wave of the franchise. The Jags were still a top team, but not quite as far ahead of the pack as we once were. The Jets and Ravens began to fall apart as well. Washington and Tampa got weaker, Cleveland and Cincy got stronger and the Bears put together a string of dominant seasons out of nowhere. But the biggest problem for me was the ascension of the Colts back to a top team. The AFC south had been a foregone conclusion for a long time, but that was no longer the case. I was still able to win the division most years, but Indy did manage to break the long string of LA dominance in 2030 and won the division again in 2032. This was kind of a lull period, I was starting to get a little tired of having played so long and it was starting to show. One of the flaws of franchise mode in 6th gen Madden games is that certain teams just never seem to be able to put it together. Part of this has to do with the AI's non-sensical draft and free agency logic. A lot of teams would sign two top level QBs while some teams would just be stuck with whatever bottom of the barrel option fell to them. After the initial few years, quite a few teams simply collapsed and were never relevant again. The Cowboys, Vikings, Rams, Bills, Giants, Panthers and, shockingly, the Patriots were never relevant again after their starting rosters turned over. The biggest dud had to be Tennessee; I don't think the Titans ever had more than five wins in a season.
I would go on to win one more trophy, the Jags would hoist the Lombardi again in 2034. It gave us seven for the franchise, the most of any team over the 30-year span. Things finally ended with a loss in the 2038 AFC championship game, a heartbreaker against the Bengals. It's always funny to see the differences of an alternate reality, and alternate this was. The Patriots dynasty ran out of steam far earlier, in this timeline they would never get their 5th or 6th titles. The Steelers never got their one for the other thumb and the Eagles did actually win their first Super Bowl, just way earlier. Even though we had one more title over the 30-year franchise, the 49ers cemented themselves as the most successful Franchise in NFL history, winning 6 titles to bring their total to 11. That left them far ahead of the pack, as their next closest competitors were unable to hoist more hardware, with the Packers winning one title and Dallas and the Giants failing to win any. Washington surpassed their hated rivals, ending up with a total of 7, tied with the Jags for second all time. The Jets would actually get the Super Bowl that's eluded them since Namath's guarantee and the Chiefs would win their two more titles around the same time, just in a world where Patrick Mahomes never existed. The Lions, Bengals and Browns would be first time winners, though shockingly more teams without titles remained without them. The Falcons, Cardinals, Bills, Panthers, Vikings, Texans and Titans remained title-less, as did the Seahawks, who were unable to assemble any sort of Legion of Boom in this timeline.
Not going to lie, I'm kind of glad to be done with it. 30 virtual years is a long time and all I have to show for it was a lousy in-game message. Seriously though, I always kind of thought of franchise mode as something of an RPG. I always get told it's weird that sports games and JRPGs are among my favorite genres as they are so opposite each other. I guess in terms of direct gameplay, that's true. But in a lot of other ways, the two genres have quite a few similarities. Either way, I am glad to be done with my franchise mode adventure, as much fun as I had during it. Now I need to find a sports game to play when I just need to kill an hour. NHL? MLB? Who knows? Maybe I will finish that franchise mode before my son graduates high school. Maybe.
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