Hey Madden fans!
Welcome back to our Madden NFL 27 Gridiron Notes, your source for all news and updates straight from our developer team. Our first major Title Update arrives today, and we wanted to give you a breakdown of what you can expect in today’s update, along with a look ahead at what’s coming in next week’s Title Update! Let's get started!
Authenticity
Hey Madden fans! We’re excited to bring the heat to your next matchup with the new 2026 NFL x Nike Rivalries uniform collection! Check out these amazing rivalry threads for the following teams:
- Chicago Bears
- Indianapolis Colts
- Jacksonville Jaguars
- Detroit Lions
- Green Bay Packers
- Houston Texans
- Tennessee Titans
- Minnesota Vikings
Gameplay
Outside of stability improvements, there are no gameplay changes in this title update. Next week, we will have a smaller title update focused specifically on gameplay coming your way so stay tuned for that. Here is a quick preview of what you can expect:
- Receivers jumping in situations they don't need to.
- More holding calls when using Aggressive Blocking coach adjustment.
- Defense now flips with offense when auto flip coach adjustment is On (I.e. A slot DB will auto follow a slot WR when formation is flipped when Auto Flip is ON)
- Blockers respond better to contain rushers.
Franchise Mode
- Resolved an issue where CPU teams suffered excessive early game injuries due to an issue which multiplied their Wear & Tear accumulation at a higher rate than intended and prevented them from managing weekly practice loads.
- Dev Note: CPU teams should now effectively manage wear and tear (pads, reps, and rest) significantly improving overall roster health.
- College Coach abilities were not being unlocked with College Coach Archetype.
- Dev Note: We have solved this issue with newly created Franchise leagues but it will not unlock the abilities for the coaches that were previously created. Keep in mind that these abilities are only for the Head Coach. Here is the list of abilities exclusive to the College Coach archetype:
- Campus Conditioning
- Coach's Curriculum
- Familiar Landscape
- Drill Efficiency
- New School
- Power Program
- Fixed an issue where created players were disappearing after a game was played after importing a custom roster file to start a league.
- Dev Note: To apply this fix, you must start a new Franchise league and re-import your custom roster file during initial setup.
- Fixed an issue where the value of Void Years weren’t being applied when a contract expired.
- Dev Note: After investigating, we found an issue where void years would essentially count the final year's cap hit and not accelerate forward the void year hits.
Note from the Franchise Team:
The team is actively investigating community-feedback regarding roster management, free agency logic, salary cap progression, and CPU decision making. We are committed to addressing these issues and will provide updates in future Gridiron Notes or directly via @MaddenNFLDirect when these issues are resolved. Here is the current list of some key issues we are looking into:
- A temporary fix was implemented last week to alleviate an issue some players were experiencing in Multi-User Franchise Leagues. The team is now targeting a full fix to restore Weekly Recap to arrive next week.
- Players are retiring at unexpected or illogical points in their careers.
- Free agents and re-signing players are signing unrealistic, long-term contract deals.
- Players can submit the top contract offer for a Free Agent and still lose them to competing teams.
- Contract negotiation options force players to add extra contract years or inflate signing bonuses.
- CPU teams accumulate massive salary cap deficits and fail to recover in future seasons.
- CPU teams repeatedly restructure large contracts during offseasons, severely compounding future salary cap issues.
- CPU team rosters carry an unrealistic lack of depth at specific positions.
- CPU teams only execute draft trades when players simulate the NFL draft rather than watching live picks.
- CPU delegation logic automatically re-signs players for user teams even when the setting is turned off.
Superstar
- Fixed an issue where quitting a Showdown 1v1 game during an Extra Point could cause the game to crash.
- Improved stability throughout Superstar when creating and confirming your Avatar, including navigating appearance, gear, uniform, and attribute customization.
- Improved stability when purchasing and equipping gear in Superstar.
- Improved stability when entering and exiting Superstar, progressing through contract signing, and navigating the Superstar Center.
- Improved stability when starting Franchise Superstar games and moving through related pre-game flows.
- Improved stability during post-game flows and when advancing through Superstar.
- Additional stability improvements have been made across Superstar and Showdown menus to reduce instances where players could become stuck or unable to continue.
Note From the Superstar Team:
We’re continuing to focus on Superstar stability in our next update. The team is currently working through additional fixes targeting rare crashes and Storefront transaction issues.
- We are investigating an issue where a server error can occur in the Superstar Storefront after purchasing a recommended Points bundle while attempting to complete another bundle purchase.
- Additional Superstar stability work is underway to address a rare front-end crash.
Presentation
We want to highlight a couple of targeted fixes coming in a Title Update next week based directly on your feedback. Here is what you can look forward to in the upcoming update:
- Offline Franchise Halftime Fix: For those of you who love matching up in local 1v1 battles within an Offline Franchise, we have resolved an issue where the Halftime Report would softlock at the end of the segment. You will now be able to transition smoothly back to the second-half action without interruption.
- Custom Adjustments Navigation Improvement: We fixed an issue that prevented the list from wrapping around, meaning you can now press "Up" at the very top of the list to quickly jump straight to the bottom item.
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