New madden ratings (Madden 13)

[larry linke]

Do we know how the league is handling the players who are free agents in real life with Madden ratings but are on rosters in the AAFL? I don't want to finish my cuts until I know how these players are being handled.

Larry
Minnesota AFFL

[Goodell]

Do we know how the league is handling the players who are free agents in real life with Madden ratings but are on rosters in the AAFL? I don't want to finish my cuts until I know how these players are being handled.

Larry
Minnesota AFFL

We'll add grade updates as they're published from EA Sports. Usually they update them every week ahead for players on NFL teams.

But if it's a player who isn't on an NFL team that's not going to matter for long anyway. After week 4, players who aren't on NFL rosters for madden to update their grade any more will see a big slashing of their grade anyway as unemployed players.

It's great that people are looking up individuals on their game copy, as that info could be useful for decisions but we can't rely just upon word of mouth for grades. Has to be something officially posted and available to the public versus one person's word. Otherwise we'd open ourselves up to people saying my game has this guy graded X and no independent verification. I believe people have found and posted free agent grade lists before. If someone finds and posts a legitimate source of such grades, we'll update them but those grades will only be short-term anyway and will be slashed if those free agents are still free agents after week 4.

As always I'd make personnel decisions based upon factors the real teams are using about a player's long-term value. Grades will go up and down all year.