Madden 24 Drafting Guide to Scout and Draft the Best Players

Building a team that can be successful over time requires development of new talent, and in Madden 24 Franchise Mode you'll find those players in the NFL Draft. By scouting throughout the season and scrutinizing prospects, you can set up a drafting performance for the ages.

In this Madden 24 drafting guide, we'll break down all the different steps to scouting on your road to the annual NFL Draft. If you want to build a true legacy with your Madden 24 franchise, you need to scout and draft the top players every single year. 

Madden 24 Drafting & Scouting Guide

There are plenty of different ways to set your team up for success and build the best squad, but the NFL Draft may be the most important. Even if you're a negotiating wizard and can trade for some of the best players in Madden 24 early on, that's only a small piece of the puzzle. To build a strong roster without breaking the bank, your drafting needs to level up. 

Now, if you're on a lower difficulty and want to just let the computer handle things, that's always an option. You don't have to bother with scouting or even going through the full NFL Draft. All of these decisions can be simulated in Madden 24 Franchise Mode. There are even a few steps along the way where you can delegate decisions to staff and let the game's own CPU logic work things out.

While that can still work out sometimes, you'll always be getting the most out of your Madden 24 Franchise Mode save by customizing scouting to what your team needs. Here, we're gonna break down every single step out of the yearly scouting process and how you can know which players to draft.

Week 1: Hire & Assign the Best Scouts

Every team's scouting needs are going to be different, but you'll have to get your entire scouting staff set on Week 1 in Franchise Mode. The first thing you need to do is take stock of your existing roster. Find out where the weak spots are, but also watch for any positions where your strengths are late in their career or particularly pricy.

With good scouting and drafting, you can fill out your Madden 24 team for the next several seasons. The next thing you want to check is your save's region strengths. These may vary based on the draft class you're using, but will help show you which positions you might full from each region.

Once you've got both of those things sorted out, start looking through the available scouts for anyone who matches up to these things. Ideally, you want a scout with position expertise on two positions you need and for those to align with a specific region.

The last potential factor is star-ratings, as you can only have one 3-Star and one 2-Star rated scout. Putting your best scout in the national region can work out, but if there's a position you desperately need that has a fitting scout for a different region, go for it.

Week 3: Regional Scouts Position Focus

Your next stage for Madden 24 scouting will be in Week 3 when you can set Focus Scouting for your four regional scouts. Here, your position focus should always align with either your scout's expertise or the region's strengths.

Ideally, you want to have picked scouts that allow you to fulfill both those things with a single position choice. This will give each scout a 15% bonus towards scouting players of that position in their region.

Week 8: National Scout Position Focus

After getting through a bit more of the season, in Week 8 you'll be able to set your National Scout's position focus. As usual, this is going to be something you want to align with your scout's skills and hopefully the overall region strengths as well.

You'll get a 20% boost towards scouting completion for players at that position. So far, all you're really doing is making sure you've got a good baseline of information across the positions that are most important.

Week 11: Choose 3 Focus Players

Once you've reached the Super Focus Scouting stage in Week 11, you're really trying to decide exactly which players you'll be drafting. Your position work should give you a great baseline of completion across many different players, but now you want to view projections and see which ones you'd like to pursue.

Now, this decision will boost the completion of each player chosen by 30%. Choose players that aren't completely scouted which you might be looking to draft, and over the next few weeks you'll get a lot closer to knowing what you need to make a decision on draft day.

Mock Drafts in Madden 24

As you're working through the season, there will be five times a Mock Draft is provided showing the current landscape and predictions on how the NFL Draft might go. You'll get one at each of the following points:

• Mock Draft 1 - Week 3
• Mock Draft 2 - Week 8
• Mock Draft 3 - Week 11
• Mock Draft 4 - Free Agency 2 (after NFL Combine)
• Mock Draft 5 - Free Agency Recap

These can be helpful to get an overall view of the league, but their accuracy is hit or miss. Don't get too wrapped up in the Mock Draft predictions, just make sure you've scouted enough players to have a few different options when the draft arrives.

Private Workouts

As the NFL Draft approaches, your final chance to get a burst of scouting done on players will be Private Workouts. These show up during the Free Agency Recap, so after you check Mock Draft 5 it'll be time to choose three players to invite.

This is going to boost scouting progress by 40%, so you may not want to use it on a player you've nearly scouted. If a player with 75% or 80% scouting completion already has enough information for you to make a decision during the draft, try choosing players closer to the 50% completion here so you can have a few extra options if someone else snags your favorite choice.

How to Know Ratings for Draft Prospects

The time has finally come. It's going to be NFL Draft Day in Madden 24, and you have to decide which players are worth drafting. You've done all the scouting work, but there's a subtle art to reading the tea leaves of how Madden 24 tells you about each prospect's abilities.

You can't guarantee knowing exact ratings, but certain factors like NFL Combine performance and Talent categories will help you decide. Generally, these are the overall Madden 24 ratings you'll get for each Talent tier:

• Top 5: 76+ Overall
• Round 1: 74-76 Overall
• Round 1-2: 72-73 Overall
• Round 2-3: 69-71 Overall
• Round 3-4: 68-69 Overall
• Day 3: 65-67 Overall
• UDFA: 64 and below Overall

This only gives you a partial picture as you'll also want to check the NFL Combine results for a player before drafting them. Physical attributes are the least likely to be improved throughout a player's career, so you want to look for top numbers on your prospects.

The 40-Yard Dash affects Speed ratings with 4.24 being the best you'll manage, but anyone at a 4.44 or higher should have 90+ Speed. You can determine Acceleration and Agility with the 3 Cone Drill, and a 6.88 or better should net you 90+ ratings there.

The 20-Yard Shuttle will impact both Agility and Change of Direction, and 90+ will look like about a 4.11 second result or better. Vertical Jump of 38+ inches should get you 90+ in Jumping, and lastly players with 34+ Bench Press reps should have 90+ Strength ratings.

Pro Day results don't seem to have as much impact as the NFL Combine itself, so focus on those numbers when making these decisions. It may seem like a lot of different things to keep in mind, but once you understand the process you'll be snagging diamonds in every single Madden 24 Draft.