Scouting and Drafting in Madden 24's Franchise Mode - What to Do and Not Do

Coming up with the right or wrong decisions in the draft has the ability to make or break an NFL franchise for the foreseeable future. All you have to do is look back at some of the biggest booms and busts to happen at past drafts to realize that the roads to the Super Bowl and ruin are charted in the same draft room.

The same principle holds true in Madden 24‘s franchise mode, where you’ll need to use the scouting tools at your disposal to draw the best conclusions you can come draft day. The game’s current scouting system, which was implemented just a few years ago, unfortunately hasn’t been all that much of an improvement on its predecessor. There are certain nuances to using it though that can allow you to make the most of what’s available as you start the season and inch closer to the pressures of the draft.

Here are some general things to do and not do when scouting and drafting in Madden 24 that will hopefully assist you in avoiding busts and finding steals.

DO – Match Your Scouts’ Strengths To Area Prospects

A key to scouting in Madden 24 is ensuring that the scouts on your staff are situated in areas where there are plenty of prospects playing a position your scouts are ideally suited to evaluate. Once you’ve taken note of what the positions of strength are in a specific area, it’s a simple matter of finding a scout who can handle that assignment. This might mean that your best course of action is to fire one of your existing scouts so you can find an available one who will be better at assessing a certain position.

Because scouts will give you more clarity on all prospects that play a scout’s positions of expertise, this will allow you to glimpse more of their actual attribute grades prior to the draft. Scouts also have different tiers, with 3-star scouts providing the biggest boost in efficiency, and you’ll usually want to keep these as your national scouts.

DON’T – Focus Your Scouts On Positions You Don’t Need

It’s imperative that you keep track of what holes you can expect to have on your roster as you head into the next season, either because of a lack of skill on your current depth chart, declining veterans, or departing free agents you can’t afford to keep. This will help you to target the positions where bringing in top draft picks will have the most impact. If you already have an elite quarterback on a long-term contract for instance, there’s hardly much sense in making it a priority to scout QBs in any areas.

Instead, assign your scouts to hone in on those positions you’re expecting to be weak at next season when the time comes to make that decision during the season.

DO – Recognize A Bust When You See One

As your scouts do their job throughout the season, they’ll begin to progress the percentage of completion on evaluating players and, in doing so, reveal to you what they do well and what they don’t. You’ll notice that some attribute grades for prospects will progress from a range (A-C for example) to more precise scores (like just an A). When those grades are showing more C’s and D’s than A’s and B’s, they should be identified as what they truly are: red flags signaling that a player is probably not going to bring all that much value to your team.

DON’T – Use A Scouting Spotlight On Someone You Shouldn’t

As you edge closer to the end of the season, you’ll be tasked with selecting 3 prospects that you’d like to spotlight in order to rapidly learn even more about them (focus scouting gives a 40% boost to scouting progress). This is where it’s smart to take stock of where you are in the standings at that time to project where you can expect to be drafting when that time comes. It’s fine to be focused on one of the top prospects if you’re in line to have a high draft pick, but you’d be better off targeting someone projected to go late in the 1st round if you’re headed to the playoffs.

Similarly, it’s not the wisest move to use a spotlight on a prospect your scouts have already almost completed assessing and consider instead setting your sights on a player who’s more of an enigma at the moment.

DO – Pay Attention To Combine Results

The combine can be useful for a variety of reasons, starting with its ability to assist in verifying what you may already believe about a player. This goes for top marks at the combine confirming a hunch that a player will be good, as well as more bad marks indicating someone could be a bust. On the other hand, though, bad scores at the combine for a player could be that one red flag that deters you from picking him. The combine also comes in handy in later rounds when you’re desperately searching for that diamond in the rough, as players that do a least one thing better than the rest of the prospects should tell you that they likely have skills that could be missing from your team.

DON’T – Reach For Players Out Of Necessity

Ask any NFL team’s war room and they will probably tell you that the draft rarely works out the way that you expect or would hope. When players that were at the top of your draft board are inevitably selected by other teams, it’s important that you have a backup plan to your backup plan so you’re not left panicking as soon as you’re on the clock. If you have a certain position of need, it’s tempting to grasp for a player at that position even though you know he is a poor substitute for who you wanted in the first place. It’s usually a better idea to look to other positions and find the best player available who can improve your team in one way or another.