Now that the reviews are pouring in from publications and regular users all over the internet, we are looking at the comments that many of our readers are leaving. Many of these comments are focused towards the lack of a Fantasy Draft or roster editing before starting Franchise Mode (what is now called Connected Careers). For those of you that don’t know what Fantasy Drafts are, we will break it down for you now.
Fantasy Drafts 
essentially take every player off of every team and put them into a pool in which you will pick any of those player for your team of choice. Every other team will follow suit in this 53-Round draft. This has been in Madden for over a decade – until now.
The developers of Madden 13 have decided to remove the Fantasy Draft (as well as some other roster editing abilities for career modes). While there are serious questions about roster editing, it is puzzling why so many people are angry about Fantasy Drafts from the aspect of longevity in career modes. It isn’t because someone can’t have a long-lasting career mode with a fantasy draft, but more along the lines of trying to figure out how much of a challenge it is to build a team in a Fantasy Draft – in Madden no less.
When I was between the ages of 12 and 14 I was a big fan of being able to trade players between teams and make my own ‘all star’ or ‘fantasy’ team in Triple Play Baseball on Playstation One. I would build a team to play against my friends and their ‘fantasy’ team in exhibition games. Outside of that, I also built a team in the fantasy draft in Madden, years later. When you could bring this fantasy drafted team into a Franchise Mode it made some people think that it would be the best thing that ever happened to the mode.
While it seems there are a few people out there that prefer to run an offline franchise or online league with a fantasy draft – I have yet to personally finish a season with a fantasy team in any sports game (especially Madden). There are a few reasons behind this, at least from my point of view.
· If you build a team of dominating all stars – where is the challenge?
· Doing a fantasy draft for career modes often results in the user taking younger players with higher speed ratings (speed has always been the most important rating in Madden)
· Knowing which players are on other teams involves going into the player management screen and scrolling through the players.
· Longevity of a fantasy drafted team in a career mode is something I have yet to see go more than two seasons.
That said, it remains that fantasy draft is gone with the wind and many people are stuck wondering why. This is one of the more confusing situations that is happening across the board in Madden 13. Between roster editing and importing draft classes and superstars from NCAA Football – a lot of users are left wondering if there is any part of career modes that will be left to their own customization or personal preferences.
The fact that EA Tiburon has tried to do something so vast with Connected Careers should make most people happy to see some sort of attempt to change from the same old and dry franchise and superstar modes.
Where do you stand on fantasy drafts and other customization? Are you among the group of people that hates everything about the changes or are you part of the faction that are happy to see some sort of originality, even at the initial cost of user customization?
NoobTubeTV 
Madden really hasn’t been innovated since buying out the NFL. Yes maybe this connected career idea will be a hit, but how hard would it be to keep an already successful and enjoyed part of the game. It would be like MW taking out something like S&D. Something that a lot of the players enjoy that isn’t truly a mainstream part of the game. I’ve been doing fantasy online drafts for the last 3 Madden games, this year was probably going to hit 10 friends to do the league with and now some of us aren’t even sure if the games worth it anymore.
I totally agree with you. The exclusive license has destroyed most of EA’s recent creativity and quality.
I was so excited to finally get to play madden 13. I ended up winning a madden tournament and receiving a free copy the night of the release. I noticed amazing gameplay improvement with the new infinity engine. I was extremely impressed with the game at first. But when I got home and found out that a fantasy draft is no longer available I turned the game off instantly! Worst decision ea has ever made. Hopefully after reading all these post from pisses off consumers, ea might realize that there best bet is to implement the fantasy draft in madden 14. That’s what I’m hoping for because I give up on madden 13. F$&/cking completely by far the stupid move ea could have ever made. F$ck u ea and thanx for ruining madden 13 even though there were major gameplay breakthroughs. Good job on the gameplay but you Fu$&ing suck.
Getting use to the Connected Carrers and like it but it still needs some tweaks. Started my Coaching Career and could not find my Custom Play Book. I am the Coach and should be able to have a play book of my own. When playing as other coaches I have there playbooks. It sounds like they are working on it (as of July saying they want this option perfected before implimenting). ?not sure what that means. This is why I choose other. Custom Playbook put back in Franchise(coach CC).
forgot to add the teak on game clock. I am first in D and last in O cuss comp is using dif clock settings for all sim games. I was using the default settings. Searching web to find what I should use for clock and excel clock. All teams should use time I select on Offline. Very confusing for NFL league stats. At least default us to what they are using. *Good thing I found your site out of the deal* 🙂 thanks.