Madden 22 Scouting has officially been revamped, and the new system brings new challenges and strategies.
In this Madden 22 Scouting Guide, we'll take a look at the basics that everyone needs to know about the new system and some of the nuances to improve your Franchise.
Madden 22 Scouting Guide: Franchise gets an all new system
For some time, Madden has used a points-based scouting system where each week you were required to spend that specific week's allotment scouting individual players.
It became relatively formulaic, and many players felt frustrated that they lost their scouting points if they didn't manually scout players every single week.
As such, the "set it and forget it" option was a key point for development of the new Madden 22 Scouting, but there is still plenty of detail for those who want to utilize it.
You can even take that to the fullest extent now by going into Franchise settings and moving Draft to "Auto" rather than "Manual," which will let the CPU do all the scouting and drafting for you.
However, you're likely to see more success if you take some time to do it yourself, and even for those wanting to remain relatively hands-off there are a few key things you'll need to do.
Scouting Basics, Tips & Tricks
Whether you're entirely new to Madden 22, or are a veteran Franchise Mode player, there are certain things everyone needs to keep in mind going into using the new Madden 22 Scouting system.
First off, there are five key decision points throughout each season in Franchise Mode where you'll have to make scouting adjustments:
Week 1: Hire, Fire, and Re-Assign Scouts
This will be your first step in creating a scouting plan for the year, and the most important thing to keep in mind will be which positions are your team needs.
You are allotted five scouts to assign to different regions: a single Tier 3 scout, a single Tier 2 scout, and three Tier 1 scouts.
You'll almost always want your single Tier 3 scout to specialize in your position of most need and want to assign them to National so they pick up any key prospects across the country.
Choosing the rest of your scouting staff, and where you place them, will depend on your team needs, and whether you'd rather focus heavily on a few positions or try to have scouts covering multiple.
Week 2 & Week 8: Assign Scouts to Positions
These two decision points are basically the same, and they will allow you to choose a single position focus for each scout.
Your Tier 3 scout should be a no-brainer and go with the position of highest need, and the rest should follow similar logic, just make sure not to advance past either of these weeks without doing this.
Week 11 & Free Agency Stage 3: Focus Scouting & Private Workouts
The most important thing to remember about these steps is that, as of now, if you back out while in the selection process you will lose the ability to use these.
That will hopefully be fixed in a future update, but in the meantime it means you should look at Prospects at least the week before each of these and make sure you have the ones you're most interested in set to Favorites, as backing out to check their known details will cause this option to vanish.
During Week 11, your three Focus Scouting choices will get an extra 30% of their player profile unlocked, and the Private Workouts in Free Agency Stage 3 unlock a full 40% of their player profile.
Don't be afraid to draft best overall instead of need
While there are some more difficult and time-consuming strategies that we'll get into shortly, the most important thing every player needs to keep in mind is that best overall is not a bad drafting strategy.
Don't reach too hard on a position of need, as some draft classes can be incredibly unbalanced with few or zero strong players at the position you need for your Franchise.
Don't waste your first round pick on a third round player if you don't have to, and don't pass up a fantastic first round option just because it isn't your weakest position.
Not every draft pick is going to pan out exactly as intended, just like the NFL, so don't be discouraged if you end up with a bust sometimes.
Mock Drafts & Draft Day
If you're not too zoned in on your scouting, chances are the mock drafts won't play a huge role in your decision making.
However, they can be a great indicator throughout the season if a player you're interested in is one you may have to trade up to acquire.
Mock Draft 5, the one produced right before the draft, is usually absurdly accurate and sometimes goes off exactly as expected, and that means it can clue you in to whether trading up for a better pick is needed.
You can actually trade up during the draft, in which case you want to first pause the draft so the clock stops and then use Manage Roster to head to Trade Central and attempt to trade for an earlier pick.
Advanced Scouting Strategies
Finally, if you're looking to really dedicate time to the new scouting system in Madden 22 Franchise, there are some tactics you can employ that are effective but time-consuming.
The very first step will be to look at prospects during Week 1 and look at every single player listed as "Day 3" or better with their draft projection.
You'll be looking in the Physicals tab for each player under Ratings, and this is where you'll see a range such as "Great - Elite" or "Solid - Good" meaning their eventual rating in these key categories will fall within that range.
The most important of the physical attributes will depend on the player, such as wanting a QB with good Throw Power or looking for high Strength for an offensive lineman.
You'll want to favorite every single player who shows potentially Elite skill at their key attributes, and use this as your core pool to observe as the season continues.
The next big challenge will be looking at news stories in the News tab of Franchise each week, specifically anything that's draft related.
Whether positive or negative, consider a story about any specific player a sign to go look at their physical skills again and see if your scouts have learned more.
At times players will fall due to these news stories, but turn out to still have very good ratings in physicals, which is something you can watch for throughout the season.
Finally, as the dust starts to settle and your scouts have learned more about players later in the season, you'll also be looking for red flags to remove prospects such as Core Attributes under Skills being low, like an F in Stamina or D in Tackling for a defensive player.
If you follow these methods, by the time the draft rolls around you should have a very clear picture of the players you're most interested in drafting and stuff like Focused Scouting, Private Workouts, Combine, and Pro Day stats should give you enough data to make a decision.
Ultimately, drafting is a challenge and an inexact science, so you're going to struggle some, but a little patience and practice can help make the new Madden 22 Scouting work for you.