Madden 26’s Franchise isn’t about winning one Super Bowl, but to scout and draft quality players so you can win multiple Super Bowls and maintain your dynasty. It’s important to know what positions your team is lacking while anticipating the retirement of veteran players. Additionally, there’s always free agency and trades, and injuries, all of which could see you losing your best players instantly. Therefore, we created a guide on how to Scout and Draft players in Madden 26’s Franchise Mode.
Madden 26 Guide – How to Scout & Draft Players in Franchise
In order to draft the best players in Madden 26’s franchise mode, you need to hire the right scouts for your team and assign them to the best regions. Let’s explain more factor in each detail:
- Settings
- Your Scouts
- Regions
- Trading Players & Picks
Firstly, before beginning Franchise, you can actually edit the difficulty of trades in the settings. You can make trade difficulty easier or harder based on your preference. So if you want to get Justin Jefferson for two seventh round picks and a bust WR, select the easiest trade difficulty.
Your Scouts & Regions
Before the season begins, you’ll want to fire all of your scouts. Then, hire new scouts based on your team needs. You’ll then need to assign those scouts to different regions.
We recommend assigning your Tier 3 Scout nationally. This ensures maximum coverage of the nation’s best prospects. Meanwhile, assign your Tier 2 and Tier 1 scouts on regional players.
Every scout specializes in two positions. You’ll want to assign them to regions where their position of expertise is the strongest. For example, if your Tier 2 Scout specializes in WRs, then assign them to a region with a strong WR class.
As you scout players, you’ll learn more information about them:
- 20% – Reveals player archetype
- 45% – Reveals Skill Grade Ranges
- 70% – Narrows down skill ranges
- 90% – Reveals Draft Talent
- 100% – Reveals exact letter grades
Overall, the process of scouting is pretty easy, once you get the hang of it. Furthermore, there are other events throughout the season to keep aware of.
Firstly, you’ll have five mock drafts throughout the season. These help you monitor where players are projected to land. This doesn’t necessarily indicate who the best players are, so be careful and scout your top players extensively to learn everything about them.
Secondly, you’ll be able to host Private Workouts during the free agency recap. Here, you select three players you really want to help you find out if they really are that good.
When scouting for players, try to identify their traits. These also help you identify star-players with potential.
It’s important to hire scouts with expertise in positions you need. For example, if your team has a lackluster secondary, it’d be a good idea to hire a high-rated scout with expertise in CBs and Safeties. If your team has a pretty good offensive line, but you still want to search for future players, try hiring a one-star Scout with expertise in the O line.
Before the draft, you’ll also learn about a player’s Combine Grade. This final event gives you more information about a player, including any red flags about them. There may have been a star DE you wanted to draft, but their terrible Combine Day may sway you to pick someone else up.
Let’s talk about Regions real quick. There are several regions where you can send your scouts. As mentioned before, you can also assign a scout nationally (to which we recommend your three-tier scout). Each region’s position of strength changes every year, so keep yourself informed of the region’s best positions every season.
Trading For Draft Picks Or Players
As we mentioned before, you can edit the difficulty of trades before beginning a Franchise. Furthermore, the game comes with a Trade Finder tool to help you find desired players easier. Instead of drafting a WR, you could just trade for a high-rated and young player like DeVonta Smith or Tee Higgins.
Furthermore, we recommend stocking up on draft picks. Do you really need a 7th round pick in this year’s draft? Does that 32 year-old backup lineman really deserve a spot on your roster?
We recommend trading away picks and players you know you won’t use. Think of it as stocking up on ammunition. The more picks you have, the more versatile you can be in trade negotiations.
Draft Night – Madden 26 Scouting and Drafting Guide
Before entering the NFL Draft, we recommend SAVING YOUR GAME! If you end up not liking the players you drafted, you can at least revert to an old save. Furthermore, make sure to set the Draft Timer to off. Unless you play in an online league, make life easier for yourself with extra drafting time.
During the Draft, you can:
- Make/Trade Your Selection
- Skip Ahead (To your next pick, the next pick in general, or the end of the draft)
Drafting players is pretty simple, but if there’s nobody on the board that you like, you can trade your pick away. It never hurts to do this, as it helps you stock up on future draft picks for players you do want.
Furthermore, you can also trade up in the draft. So if you’ve saved up a lot of trade picks, you can use them to leverage your way into a better spot. Overall, there’s a ton of things you can do on draft night, with each decision impacting the league forever.
It also helps to understand the team you’re trading with. Personally, I prefer trading with teams with bad records. If the 2-15 Cardinals want my aging RB for a first round pick, I’ll take the deal. Chances are they won’t be good again the next year, leading to a good draft pick as well.
Making A Selection – Who are the best players to Draft in Madden 26 Franchise?
The best players to draft in Madden 26 Franchise Mode are those with high scout grades and great Combine results. Not many players possess both of these, which is why it’s important to learn as much as you can about a player.
Many players drafted early in the first round tend to be Future Starters. But there are also many busts, as well as sleepers in later rounds. Then there are guys drafted in the second, third, and fourth rounds, who really make up the bulk of your team.
Overall, that wraps everything up in this guide on how to scout and draft players in Madden 26. We hope this guide helped you understand how the scouting system works. Furthermore, we hope it helps you draft the next NFL Legend who will elevate your Franchise to the next level. Regardless, have fun booing virtual Roger Goodell on Draft Night.
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