Madden NFL 2003 - Strategy Guide (Page 03)

Below are the cheat codes, hints and help for Madden NFL 2003 - Strategy Guide (Page 03).

What you need here is an interception or fumble recovery. Try your hardest not
to cause a penalty, since that will keep the game clock running if it already
is, and reset the play clock either way.

This is the time to burn your timeouts if you have them. Use them whenever you
can, but remember that the two-minute warning will stop the clock as well. If
there's 2:01 left on the clock, don't bother calling a timeout since the clock
will freeze in only a play or less. Just keep those fingers crossed and pray
that luck is a lady this night.



+----------------------+
|+--------------------+|
||8. CHALLENGING PLAYS||
|+--------------------+|
+----------------------+

Unlike in 2002, challenging plays is actually a HUGE part of the game. There
are bad calls every game or so, and you have to be ready to challenge!

To challenging a play, pause the game and select it from the menu. You cannot
challenge plays if the call results in a dead ball. For example, let's say
there's a play where you think it's a fumble, but it's called an incomplete
pass. You can't challenge it because the call results in a dead ball. Now, if
it happens the other way around, where it's a fumble but you think it's an
incomplete pass, THAT can be challenged.

You get two challenges per game, but if the game goes into overtime, you'll
lose all remaining challenges. Also, you cannot challenge a play within the
final two minutes of either half; however, the booth (the refs in the press box
in the stadium) can challenge any play within those last two minutes.

If you challenge something and you're wrong, not only will you waste that
challenge, but you'll lose a timeout. That's why you should only challenge if
you're totally sure. If you challenge and are right, you lose one challenge,
but you keep your timeouts and the play becomes the way it should be.

Also, you need to know when to challenge. For example, let's say you're on
offense, and you fumble, but you recover. Whether you fumbled or not, don't
challenge the fumble. There's no reason to, because since you recovered it,
challenging would not put yourself into any better of a position.

By the way, you cannot challenge penalties. You also cannot challenge a play
after accessing instant replay mode. That would be cheating!

I'm going to go over a couple rules of football here.

WHEN YOU'RE DOWN
A player is down when his knee, elbow, shoulder, or butt hit the grass. The
MOMENT he's down, the play dies, and the ball is spotted where he held it at
the time.

So, let's say there's a called fumble, but he dropped the ball AFTER his knee
touched the ground. If the offense challenges the play, the fumble will be
reversed, because the moment he was down, the play was really dead. That is,
you cannot fumble the ball if the play is already over.

Also, if you dive forward, you again won't be down until your knees or elbows
hit the ground. So, if you are at the five yard line, dive and land, and the
ball is at the three-yard line once you land, that should be the spot.
Sometimes the refs won't spot the ball correctly, which could affect whether
you get a first down. Challenge if you think the ball was spotted at the wrong
place.

CATCHES
In order for a catch to be complete, the receiver must catch the ball and have
BOTH FEET IN BOUNDS. The only exception is if he would have stayed in bounds,
but is pushed out. Under standard circumstances, if the receiver had a foot out
of bounds when he caught the ball, then it's no catch.



======================================================
|               PART 3: GENERAL MANAGER              |
======================================================

You may be the greatest coach in the universe, but if your team plays like
1st-grade girls, you won't be seeing too many Super Bowl rings. Luckily, not
only are you the coach, but you're also the General Manager, in charge of
players, their salaries, and their fates.

For this entire section, I'm going to assume you have the Salary Cap option set
to On. If not, you can pretty much ignore this, since you can make your team
into anything you want.

+------------+
|+----------+|
||9. SIGNING||
|+----------+|
+------------+

The Free Agent Pool may be what you need to round out your team. If you have a
particular weakness at one position, or you want a good backup for an already
strong position, you can sign someone to a yearly contract worth a particular
amount of money.

Most players want to be signed for only a few years, although the older players
want long-term contracts. Getting the perfect deal is easy, because the players
have infinite patience.

When you're first presented with the sign screen, the amount of money listed is
what the player wants. The secret is that he'll normally settle for a LOT less.
The first thing you should do is cut the money in half, then select the number
of years you want to hire him for, then submit the offer to him. Depending on
how many years he wants, he'll respond in different ways.

If he says that the years are right, but he wants more money, that's a good
thing. If he says that the whole deal stinks, then slowly adjust the years and
NOT the money. Basically, you want to establish how long he wants to play for
you.

Once you've got that figured, move the money offer up slowly. Work one tick at
a time. He'll accept the moment you get within the range, and he'll normally
make some comment about that he should have held out for more. He's now on your
team, for as cheap as you could get him, and for the number of years that you
set as well!

Don't worry about making any bad offers. They don't have attitudes, so you
don't have to worry about a player getting mad and just leaving your offer, no
matter how high, to go somewhere else.



+----------------+
|+--------------+|
||10. RE-SIGNING||
|+--------------+|
+----------------+

You have the opportunity to re-sign your players to alter their contracts,
which is very important at the end of seasons. Players with zero years
remaining will be released to the Free Agent Pool if you don't resign them,
which is trouble if they're stars.

If you're dealing with an older player that's been in the league for awhile,
especially if he's carrying a high price tag, you may not want to sign him for
too many years. His skills may just decay for the rest of the time you've got
him, and his price will hurt your salary cap.

On the other hand, youngsters that have high skills need to be signed longer
than they want. If you have a star rookie, you may want to pay him an obscene
amount of money so he'll stick around for 7 years. Of course, the problem is if
he ends up sucking, you're stuck with a black hole of money.

Carefully weigh whether you need a player before paying him large sums for
long-term contracts. If he's failed to live up to your expectations, then
there's no shame in not re-signing him.

Players may hold out if they don't think you're paying them enough. While they
will remain on your roster, they will not play in any games until they get
however much they think they deserve.

Bill (BoruffTrkyHunter@aol.com) sent this great tip...

####################################################

I stumbled onto a neat way of cutting costs and adding years to your players on
Madden 2003. I had just entered a new season on my fantasy mode and had to do
some re-signing of players. Well, since I had done a lot of revamping in
regards to my roster in the preseason I was nearly out of salary cap and as you
may well know when you resign players they seem to want a lot of money to
continue playing for you. I ended up having to cut players that I really wanted
to keep but here's were it gets good.

I decided to jump back on free agency and try to get some of my guys back. I
found that when they are playing for you they want the bank so to speak but
when you cut them they are quite willing to take large pay cuts just to have a
place to play. After learning this I decided to have a little fun with cutting
players and then resigning them time after time. I found that the first cut
especially for those players that are making upwards of 2 million dollars a
year to be fairly large and they continued to take less each time you cut them.
I now have a loaded team with 55 members with all the best of the best in the
game top to bottom playing for me and none of them making more than $800,000
per year and a salary cap of over 26 million dollars in reserve.

It doesn't work in the early part of the season while they still have worth in
regards to trades. After the sixth week or so when the teade deadline has been
reached it is at this time you will be able to cut and resign your players time
after time until they are playing for nearly base pay for a 12th round rookie
just to have a team to play for.

####################################################

+-----------------------+
|10a. Player Progression|
+-----------------------+

I've had a lot of questions lately about player progression, so I'll put my
findings here in a new subsection.

A lot of people think that player progression seems totally random, but I
assure it's not. While randomness is certainly a part of it, you can seriously
tip the balance one direction or the other.

The first big factor is age. Old players will decline in skill, and young
players will gain in skill. Look at Michael Jordan (I know, different sport):
he's friggin' old in sports talk, and he's starting to suck. Then again, we
could look at Jerry Rice, who is older than Jordan and is still showing no
signs of slowing down.

That leads me to the next big factor: playing time. Maybe if Jordan hadn't
retired twice, he would still be that good today despite the age. Jerry Rice is
in every game for his team, so he stays strong and fit. If you don't play your
players, they will get worse and worse as time goes on.

The next factor is past performance. For example, I have Blaine Prior, a guy I
drafted forever ago. In his rookie season, I didn't trust him yet (I had a
better runner in my MLB, Nick Grant), and he only ran about 25 yards for the
season. However, he did gain stats because I used him now and then, and he had
no past performance, being a rookie and everything.

In his second season, Grant was injured for a few games. Prior started, and he
managed to get about 350 yards in 6 games. Prior gained more stats, because
according to past performance, he did much much better.

In his third season, I trusted him to start. He ran for about 1100 yards. For
the next SIX seasons, his yardage was always +1200 (I use A LOT of running
plays), and in his eighth season, he managed 1798 yards. He had grown to a
98-rated HB, with 88 SPD, 99 BTK, 99 AGI, 99 ACC, and 80 CTH.

In his ninth, I changed my playbook, got a new quaterback, and passed a bunch.
Prior only ran 560 yards despite starting and not giving me a reason to hate
him. After the season, his overall score dropped EIGHT points. Because, based
on past performance, he had run so many seasons not just +1000 yards, but +1500
yards or more. Suddenly he only runs 500, and he decays... Teaches me not to
ignore an all-star.

Anyway, I still have him, but for his last few seasons, he's been getting worse
and worse... I run him as much as I can, but now that he hit that massive drop,
he's losing about a point or two overall per season.

The point is that past performances seem to really affect players, and
offensive and defensive linemen are very streaky, especially if you traded for
them. Those are the hardest positions to raise, so I reserve my cash in the
off-season to sign 'em.

Another big factor to progression is injuries. If a player is injured, his
stats will go down based on the severity on the injury. The game is realistic:
a QB's throwing power won't drop if he has a hurt knee, but it will plummet if
he shatters his wrist. Even if the rest of the season went well, a player's
attributes may be shot to hell with a bad enough injury (Terrell Davis comes to
mind).

After all that, the player's stats are what determine progression. Simply put,
the better the season, the better the gain. A QB who throws for 3000 yards will
gain many points; a QB who gets sacked a dozen times will get worse.



+-------------+
|+-----------+|
||11. TRADING||
|+-----------+|
+-------------+

If a player becomes dead weight, or another team got someone you wanted, you
may want to trade.

You can trade up to 3 players, 3 draft picks, or a combination to one other
team (no triangle trades here). The CPU values draft picks relatively highly,
so you can use those as bargaining chips to get what you want.

If your team is very old, you may want to save your draft picks or even trade
to get more to get youngsters. You can have up to 10 picks for the next draft,
and those can be distributed to any round however you see fit.

Players that are injured, players that are holding out, and players that have
zero years left on their contract cannot be traded.

Joe Fritz (s_tristero@hotmail.com) gave me a tip that I actually have always
used, but I never bothered to write it in my guide for whatever reason...

####################################################

Early in the season the computer is silly about trading draft picks. Play
through week five and see who looks like they're going to have the worst year.
Then simply trade them pick for pick. If you trade around for picks you can put
yourself in a good position no matter how well you finish. I once traded picks
until I had two first, two second and two third round picks. I didn't have any
fourth through seventh rounders but who needs 'em. And they were from teams
like the lions.

####################################################

I'll elaborate a bit on Joe's tip. The trading deadline is week 6, but you
can't trade if you've played a game that week. In other words, the moment ALL
games on week 5 are done (all user games are played and all CPU games are
simmed), you need to resolve your trades then.

Using Joe's (and my) tip, after week 5 is in the books, click Play Week from
the main Franchise menu, then hit Standings. Look at the team with worse
records; they're the ones who will probably have the best draft picks. Now, the
computer does not think that far ahead, so a team that's 0-5 will value its
draft picks just as much as a team that's 5-0.

The theory is that if you know you'll do reasonably well that season, try to
trade your picks so you end up trading up. If you are lucky enough to get the
worst team's picks, that means you'll have really GOOD picks at the end of the
season.

RJ McKay (rj_mckay@hotmail.com) submitted this...

####################################################

The computer over values draft picks. On several occasions, when going into
preseason, I've traded my 1st round draft pick (assumed to be the 30th or so
overall) for the top player in the draft, a second and a fifth round draft
pick. Of course, you have to drop them and re-sign them for a correct number of
years, but you can get the top player every year and get some great value for
that first round pick that may would be consistently be worse than the player
you would have drafted.

####################################################



+--------------+
|+------------+|
||12. SCOUTING||
|+------------+|
+--------------+

During the draft, you will not be able to see the actual attributes of the
rookies. So, what you have to do is scout up to 15 players. Once they are
scouted, you'll get a scouting note that reveals a few of the stats.

Example: the scouting note may read, "He does his best to stay healthy." That
means his INJ rating is really high, and he stays uninjured most of the time.

There are three scouting rounds. If you scout a player for only one round, you
get one scouting note. If you get scout the same player a second time, you get
three notes. If you scout a player through all three rounds, then you get five
notes.

Don't just scout guys who are projected to go in the first round or two. You'll
have to draft (and therefore should scout) guys who are projected to go late.



+--------------+
|+------------+|
||13. DRAFTING||
|+------------+|
+--------------+

At the end of each season in Franchise Mode, you get to draft rookies from the
colleges around the country. When you draft, you need to keep several things in
mind.

First of all, you'll want to make sure that you're not drafting for a position
that you know is already filled. If you're the Bengals, there's no reason to
get a HB since you've already got Dillon.

Drafting is more or less like signing a free agent. You want to compliment your
team's strengths by filling holes in its weaknesses, or at least get backups
for your players that are already established.

The draft order is determined by your position in the previous season. The
Super Bowl winner will pick last, with the Super Bowl loser picking just before
them. The worst team will pick first, and the records determine most of the
other picks. Of course, you can trade up; I once won the Super Bowl, but traded
a bunch of picks and players and eventually got first pick.

You have to pick on each round, but you don't have to SIGN anybody. Once you
make all your picks, you can sign whoever you want. You can sign them all, or
none, or whatever combination you feel you need to. Like signing free agents,
you can slowly manipulate your target to get the best deal possible.

Mick (jaggardm@beltone.com) sent me a fantastic essay on getting high draft
picks...

####################################################

First of all, the computer rates teams differently prior to pre season and
afterwards.  Before Starting pre-season, I usually devote 15 - 30 minutes to
trading draft picks.  Trade your 1st round pick for a 1st, 3rd, and 5th round
pick.  If you can get a 2nd or 4th in there instead of the 3rd or 5th, don't. 
You'll get more ground out of progressive trades.  After the first trade, trade
your new 1st, old 6th and 7th for a 1st, 3rd, and 5th.  Trade your 3 5th rounds
for a 4th, and your 3 3rd rounds for a 1st (if possible) or a 2nd, 4th and
5th.  Continue trading you 1st round picks for 1st 3rd and 5th until no one
will trade with  you. Trade your 3rd and 5th round picks up when necessary to
maintain the 10 pick limit.

After preseason is complete, go back and do it again.  The computer will value
trades differently. In the first season especially, the rams 1st round pick is
valued low before the preseason, but increases in value before the regular
season.  Repeat at the end of week 5.  Just doing this, I usually go into the
draft with 5 first round, and 5 2-4th round picks.

Prior to the regular season, if you have gotten 3 2nd round picks and at least
2 first round picks, trade your most expensive useless player along with 2 1st
round picks for a cheaper better player.  Then go back and trade your 3 2nd
round picks for the 2 1st round picks you just traded.  You can usually get
them back.

After the first draft, there will be several free agents who are pretty good in
the free agent pool.  If  you have the salary cap available, you can sign the
free agent, the turn around and trade them for draft picks.  A good way to pick
up a 3rd or 4th round pick easy to help you trade up.

The draft picks are listed in order of merit from top to bottom.  So, if you
have (for example) 5 5th round picks, they will list the order of merit, with
the ones at the top being the most valuable.  Some correlation between the
teams you've already traded with will tell you which teams have the most
valuable picks.  When you have 3 good draft picks,  you can trade up 2
levels.  So 3 good 4th round picks can get you a 2nd round pick.  However, 3
average 4th round picks will only get you a 3rd and a 5th round pick. 

Never trade for a 6th or 7th round pick unless you are freeing up space on the
other teams trade roster. 

The best I've ever done is 8 first round picks and 2 third round picks.

####################################################



======================================================
|            PART 4: OTHER MADDEN FEATURES           |
======================================================

There are a million things you can do aside from just straight-up playing
football.



+-----------------------+
|+---------------------+|
||14. CREATE-A-PLAYBOOK||
|+---------------------+|
+-----------------------+

Several games on several systems have had modes to let you create plays, like
Troy Aikman Football on the SNES (anyone remember that game?). This, however,
is the richest play creator in the business, especially considering the fact
that you can make your own formations!

You can't attach a created playbook to a user name or team like you could in
the 2002 version (with any luck, EA Sports will get around to making that a
little more user-friendly in 2004). You *have* to select the created playbook
manually before every game.

However, you CAN attach audibles to it. Select your playbook prior to a game,
then once the game starts, pause it. Select "Coaching Strategies" from the
pause menu, and you can change your audibles. Once you do, you are prompted to
save your playbook. See, when you make audibles for a real playbook, the
audibles save on your profile. However, when you make audibles for a created
playbook, the audibles save on the playbook itself. All you have to do is
overwrite your playbook once you set your audibles, and they'll stick until you
change them.

+-------------------------+
|14a. Offensive Formations|
+-------------------------+

There are a few things you have to remember if you're making an offensive
formation. The QB has to be behind the center, and any RBs you have have to be
BEHIND the QB. Take a look at this example...

O=OL
Q=QB
R=RB

OOOOO
  Q
  R

*correct*



OOOOO
  Q

 R

*correct*



OOOOO

  Q
 R

*correct*



OOOOO
 R
  Q

*wrong*



OOOOO

  QR

*wrong*



You never HAVE to have runningbacks at all. Don't forget about the two real
formations called Singleback-5WR and Shoutgun-5 WR, where there is no RB at
all. Of course, if you choose to do that, then you can only make passes for the
formation. That's not bad if you've got the Steelers or Vikings, but it may not
be so hot with the Texans or Browns.

You can have as many WRs, TEs, and RBs as you want so long as the total is
five. Although most formations feature two RBs or less, you can make formations
with three. Here's one I made...

W=WR
Q=QB
O=OL
R=RB

W  OOOOO  W
     Q
   RRR


The final restriction on offensive formations is that there must be seven (no
more, no less) people on the line of scrimmage. Now, since you already have
your offensive line and they're unmoveable, you just need two more. You can use
two TEs, two WRs, or one of each. Any other TEs and WRs on the play need to be
at least one tile from the top. The game will tell you that you made an invalid
formation if you make a mistake.

Also, the two guys aside from the OL have to be balanced on the sides. That is,
you have to have one TE or WR on the line on the left, and one TE or WR on the
line on the right. You can't both players on one side or the other. You CAN
have different positions, so like you could have a TE on the right and a WR on
the left, but they both have to be on the line.

Here's a sample list of some formations I made.

Q=QB
H=HB
F=FB
W=WR
T=TE
O=OL

W OOOOO W
 W     W
    Q

     H

(Name: Four Up)



    TOOOOOT
W  W   Q
      H

(Name: Lean Left)



TOOOOOT
   Q   W  W
    H

(Name: Lean Right)



W   OOOOO    W
      QF   W
     H

(Name: RB Flankers. If you notice, the FB is ineligible for rushes; that's not
a mistake, I intentionally desgined it that way.)



    W   OOOOO   W
W                 W W

          Q

(Name: Shotgun Spread)



TOOOOOT
   Q   W
    F
   H

(Name: Tight Strong)



TOOOOOT
   Q   W
  F
   H

(Name: Tight Weak)



W  OOOOO  W
     Q

   HFH

(Name: Trio Left)



W  OOOOO  W
     Q

     HFH

(Name: Trio Right)



Kristofor Newman (newman@glasscity.net) gave me a crapload of info for this
section. Among other things, he's mentioned how to actually take a created
formation and just alter it to a better version...

####################################################

I noticed the other day that you can modify an existing formation. It seems
that when you do this, all the pre-created plays in that formation remain (but
with the players in different positions)...

####################################################

The rest of that first e-mail is pointless, because he sent a follow-up e-mail
which gives a VERY informative piece of info. Check out the next subsection.

+--------------------+
|14b. Offensive Plays|
+--------------------+

There is no good or bad formation. Success is based on how creative the plays
those formations have are.

Madden 2003 gives you the power to make your own receiver routes. Just don't go
too nutty if you do, because though you may throw off the defense, you may
throw off your pass as well. Also, remember that you don't have too long in the
pocket when you pass, so if you run an extremely complex play, it may not get
done before your QB gets blasted. And trust me, that's never a good thing.

You can also set up runs, but you have a little less control over the
intricacies for a reason. Just like real NFL plays, the moment the HB has the
ball, all plans go out the window. A play may start with, "Run left and the QB
will toss you the ball." That's fine, but the second the HB has run left and
has control of the ball, he needs to go and do whatever is needed to score.
Typically when you make a run play, you'll need a lead blocker, which is
normally the job of the FB. You can also tell your WRs and TEs to block, and
you can send your OL one way or another if you're running a sweep.

By the way, before you start making plays, take a look at some of the real
plays. Any idiot can make good passing plays and routes, but running plays take
a bit work when it comes to the linesmen's blocking schemes.

Previously, I stated that it is impossible to create trick plays like draws,
reverses, and play actions. However, Kristofor Newman (newman@glasscity.net)
has said a way to do it!

####################################################

I created a "new" formation by taking an existing formation and moving people
around. As it turns out, any plays that you have already included in the
formation prior to modifying it remain, as do the "routes" that all players
follow. Using this property, it is possible to have Delays and Play Action
passes in a user-created formation. In addition, you can put players in motion
(even in brand-new plays, not just in modified existing ones) but some strange
things can happen. In one instance I had two WR's going in motion at the same
time from left to right (an obvious glitch, not to mention an Illegal Procedure
even though you won't get flagged). There's definitely some room for abuse here
by unscrupulous players.

####################################################

Kristofor, you absolutely rock.

+------------+
|14c. Defense|
+------------+

Defensive plays are a little trickier, because as you know, they can only
react, they can't control where the offense goes. As such, making formations
and plays becomes less detailed.

A good defensive play is one where either all receivers are covered or all
probable zones they will pass to are covered. A good run defense play is one
where your DL plugs all holes and your CBs prevent sweeps.

But, of course, you don't know what the enemy is going to do play to play. They
may surprise you with a Hail Mary on first down or run it when it's 4th and 15.
As such, you need to make most of your defensive plays at least moderately
balanced.

Unlike the offense, there are no restrictions to your formations.

+-------------------------+
|14d. Submitted Formations|
+-------------------------+

Okay, so this is a new subsection as of v1.1, and it's here to let everyone see
formations that other players have made.

+--------------------+
|Offensive Formations|
+--------------------+

1. 3-Wing Back
Submitter: Raymond (Gungnir@rocketmail.com)

TOOOOOT
   Q
  F F
   H



2. Receivers Left
Submitter: Chrisky20m (Chrisky20m@aol.com)

      W     OOOOOT
W             Q          W
                H



3. Bookend-Normal
Submitter: Kristofor Newman (newman@glasscity.net)

W   OOOOOT
W     Q  T

      H