Opinion: Time For NFL To Give EA Sports Competition Against Madden Football

Fans of the Madden NFL franchise are getting fed up with the quality of the game. Madden 23 started out very promising as the game appeared smoother and less glitchy than its previous three versions. However, the same repetitive pattern of events takes place every year like clockwork. Players start to give up every late May and the number of active players decreases dramatically about this time of year.

Some gamers have up altogether on the Madden franchise. What’s the main culprit? Ironically, it appears to be Madden’s most popular game mode Madden Ultimate Team (MUT). With no competition and a surplus profit every year from players buying ultimate team packs, Electronic Arts Sports (EA Sports) has little incentive to make the game better.

The game’s flaws are so noticeable that the staff at EA Headquarters has to know that there are real issues to address. One of my pet peeves has to do with the football somehow missing a wide receiver’s hands completely. This issue hasn’t been quite as common in the last couple of months. There are also multiple games of receivers miraculously catching passes despite tight double or sometimes triple coverage. While these contested catches can happen in regular NFL games, it becomes a nuisance when some players, who gave little to no user skills and an obvious lack of football knowledge, somehow miraculously pass the ball effectively despite excellent double coverage.

Another big issue has to do with the game’s physics. Most of the time, when a running back or wide receiver gets absolutely nailed, the chance of holding on to the ball is slim to none. While EA usually gets this right, there have plenty of examples of receivers making catches despite big hits (hit sticks). Even the running backs somehow hold on to the football. Granted, EA faced criticism in the past for too many fumbles in similar situations so it likely seems to be a “darned if they do, darned if they don’t” type of scenario.

There was even a case earlier in the year in which many franchise online leagues were mysteriously deleted. EA has since tried to make things right by offering closed beta testing for Madden 24 for those impacted by the deleted franchises.

Multiple games still have issues with lagging due to the EA servers still having technical issues. Although, some of the technical issues could be the result of issues players are having with their internet, especially in cases of bad weather.

What can the NFL do about it? The best thing is to do exactly what the league did years ago, allow more companies to compete against EA Sports. San Diego Studio, formerly 989 Sports owned both NFL GameDay and NFL Extreme. Perhaps if the NFL gave rights to San Diego Studio to make their own games again, EA Sports would be pushed to once again, polish the game as much as possible.

Granted, EA Sports will likely dominate the market for years. However, with increased competition, EA Sports will work so much harder on making the game great. ESPN and Midway can also jump back into the market.