How Madden NFL 18 is finally fixing injuries

This week, EA finally began shedding light on Madden NFL 18’sgameplay features,improvements, andplayer ratings. Today, the developer posted how Madden 18 will address community requests. While there are plenty of improvements made this year, one key issue being addressed are player injuries.

Unfortunately, injuries are a part of the NFL. Madden, however, hasn’t typically handled them all that well in the past. Aside from the fact that just about every player in Madden 17 suffered a broken collarbone on any big hit, you may have notice that certain positions rarely — or sometimes never — sustained injuries.

That’s because in the past injuries have been tied only to tackle animations. If a player was never involved in a tackle, they couldn’t get hurt.

That will be changing in Madden 18 with the addition of off-ball injuries. When playingSimulationplayers not directly involved in the tackle can now be injured. This includes offensive and defensive lineman.

As EA explains:

“You’ll want to stay on top of the injury report. When an off-ball injury occurs, you won’t see an injury animation on the field – only the injury notification under the scoreboard. In some cases, you may see the injury notification after the play, but before the sideline can report on the severity of the injury. The player may have already returned to the game.”

The addition of off-ball injuries means depth is finally important to your team. Previously, you could get away with having an A-plus line and then a bunch of scrubs for backups and not have to worry. I’m glad to see this is finally being addressed.

What still remains a mystery, however, is the types of injuries players can get. It seems Madden 17 had one or two very common injuries — one of them being broken collarbone — and little else. Will Madden 18 add more variety to the injury report? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Personally, I’d like to see less severe, nagging injuries that don’t necessarily keep a player out for weeks, but maybe lowers their ratings for a few games.