An interview with the EA roster guru ! We recently had a chance to speak with Jonathan Crankshaw who works on the rosters for Madden NFL at EA Tiburon.
Do you only work on Madden's rosters, or on other EA SPORTS game rosters as well?
I work on all EA Sports games that come through Tiburon. That includes Madden, NCAA, Head Coach, NFL Street, and recently the rosters for Arena2.
What's involved in putting together a roster update and making it available for people to download?
Well for several weeks I have been preparing for it by documenting transactions, injuries, depth charts changes, and rating changes that I need to make. When it is about a week before it is to be released online I start making the changes in the database. I go through the injuries and place the guys on injured reserve, and then I see if any of the teams have guys that are playing more and need to be added. Unfortunately some of the time I can't get all the players in Madden that get playing time due to roster restrictions. Once that is all set I go through the Depth Charts and update those and go through my docs and update the player ratings. After all the teams look correct we have it tested for a couple days to make sure all the teams work in Online/Franchise/etc. and nothing is broken. After that it is usually made available for download in the next couple of days.
How many roster updates do you put out each season? Is there a certain schedule?
In the past it has been around 4-5 per year. There will usually be one every 5-6 weeks during the regular season with one more after the Super Bowl with the players removed off of Injured Reserve. There could also be some special cases where if a big trade were to happen or a couple significant injuries in the same week might call for one.
A lot of fans wonder why rosters can't be updated each week during the NFL season. Why does it take a while for updates to come out?
Generally the problem has been the time it takes to get the update ready and verified ready to be used by the public. It is better to be cautious when dealing with so many things that can go wrong with a game played by so many people. It is a lot of behind the scenes stuff that causes problems that the public is never aware of. So usually a safe amount of time is allotted to get the roster 100% ready to be used by the public. We are working on improving existing methods to expedite the time it takes to get an update ready. This year the plan is to have more than ever before, ideally every week or two.
Have the new attributes added to next gen Madden made your job harder? How do you feel they've helped the game?
Well there is definitely more reading and research involved but it is a lot of fun and really helps with the gameplay. These new ratings really help out with players playing more like they do in real life. You can play to player's strengths more and you have to think more when calling plays. Especially this year with the new ratings that we have you are really going to have to pay attention where players are on the field and call plays using your personnel to stop them. Matchups are going to be a big part of this years game.
How does the awareness rating work?
The higher the players Awareness is the quicker he will be able to react to the play making him more effective at making the play. So with defensive backs a player like Champ Bailey will not be fooled as often by routes so he will be able to stay on the receivers hip most of the time. Then when the ball is in the air he will be able to make better breaks on the ball making the swat or interception. In contrast a defensive back that has low awareness will be fooled more often by routes or not turn his head in time to make the swat. The Awareness rating is still a huge part of current gen Madden (PS2/Xbox/NGC), but with the new ratings we have in next gen (PS3/Xbox 360) we are able to use other ones in certain situations instead of having just one being used at all times.
When coming up with player and team ratings, what sources do you use and how much of your own judgment goes into the process?
It is basically three parts: general opinion, performance, and my opinion. The general opinion comes from announcers, columns, analysis, etc. and just anything that is out there on the player(s). The performance is their stats, team performance, team rankings, and how they compare to other players at the position. Also I look at teams playing style so a receiver in a run offense that is having a good year but not quite as good as a player in a pass style offense would definitely be taken into account. And the third thing is my opinion. This comes mostly from what I see from them in game. During football season my Sundays involve having two games on at all times with my laptop open making notes and checking scores. During the week at work I have that show where they show the games in thirty minutes on which is a big help in seeing every minute of every game. Seeing as much game film as possible is important in rating some of these attributes. It's a bigger help if I can see the stuff I am reading.
Some guys I have a lesser opinion of than most, some guys I like more than the experts do. Because when it all comes down to it you don't have guys on TV saying this guy is playing like an 88 OVR (Overall Rating) right now, so I give them a number based on what I think. Hopefully I'm right way more than I am wrong.
What kind of a season must a player have in order to receive a significant boost to their overall rating?
Generally each player is looked at to see if they are meeting or exceeding their overall rating. Some slip through the cracks longer than others. If a player loses his starting job his rating might go down, like a Fred Smoot. He was generally regarded as a good corner but he had a rough year where he got benched for a rookie, so he can not be looked at as highly anymore. If a player becomes a starter then I will give their rating a second look. It's just all about performance whether statistical or otherwise. Roster updates are a great way for me to fix stuff that was wrong initially. Because you can't always predict a Mike Furrey or Marques Colston.
What procedure do you use to rate rookies that have never played in the NFL?
It involves a lot of reading and research in addition to what I have already seen. I try to read as many different opinions of the player as possible so I know the consensus when I rate them. That combined with what I have seen and how I think it will translate to the NFL. If two players have similar performances at the NFL combine, then I might look at the conference they played in or the games they had against NFL type competition. It's putting together as much info as possible to make an educated guess on how that players game will translate to the NFL level and making their ratings as such because guys don't always play like their 40 time. A guy might be fast on a track in sweats but when you throw an offense/defense on the field with play actions, pump fakes, bootlegs, blitzes, etc. guys have to worry about much more than running in a straight line. I see guys that run these amazing times at the combine or at their pro day but I never saw them get open in college so that is usually a red flag where I have to make their speed lower than what the combine/pro day time might suggest. So combine and pro day numbers are a good help but it doesn't always translate into game speed. Then you have guys that play fast and have all the combine numbers, like a Calvin Johnson.
Have you ever been contacted by an NFL player about his ratings?
This is my first year doing the Madden rosters so I haven't really talked to any players about their ratings but I know it happened all the time to the guy that did the rosters before me. It happens frequently when a player meets a person that works on Madden. If they play the game they usually have a suggestion about one area (at least) where they could be better. Just recently at a Madden event several players talked to one of the producers that works on the game about their speed rating. Speed is generally the biggest complaint among the players. Edgerrin James is in contact with one of the guys that work here about various things. He wants to make sure we aren't too hard on him after last year. I am told he usually is pretty critical of his ratings which is pretty cool that a guy would be concerned that his pass blocking isn't where it should be. In those cases it's cool that you are talking to a NFL player, but at the end of the day it comes down to making the ratings as authentic as possible.
