Mut 26 coins reminds me of the Marvin Lewis-coached Bengals. Lewis led Cincinnati’s football team to the most wins of any coach in the history of the franchise, and they made the playoffs seven times during his tenure, including a stretch where they made the playoffs for five straight years. They never won any of those playoff games, though. Not one. Some of the losses were close. Some were heartbreakers that the Bengals gave away. Lewis’ teams were almost always good, or at least decent, but they were never good enough – and after a while it became clear that they never would be. Three years after his departure the Bengals would play in the Super Bowl, led by a new head coach in Zac Taylor and the recently drafted Joe Burrow. It’s amazing how quickly things can change in the NFL when organizations decide to try something new.
Like Lewis’ Bengals, Madden NFL 26 is good, or at least decent, but never quite good enough to make it feel like a winning year for this series. After something of a soft reboot last year, Madden NFL 26 is focused mostly on refinement, while attempting to address several sore spots among fans in what has been widely referred to as a “make or break year.” And while several notable improvements have been made, it still feels like what the series has been known for in recent years: a great on-field experience desperately searching for a way to make everything else work. Unfortunately, while you can see flashes of greatness and the play is usually passable, it’s hard to shake the feeling that things won’t get meaningfully better until somebody at EA gives EA Tiburon the time and money to make some serious, meaningful changes.
Let’s start with the good stuff. One of the biggest improvements is to FieldSENSE, where the existing Hit Everything system has been combined with new animations that take player size and strength into account. EA Tiburon claims it has added or adjusted more than 1,700 tackle animations, and I believe it, because the new animations look fantastic. There are new contested-catch animations, wrap-up tackles, and my personal favorite, scoops, where large defensive players will pick up offensive players by the legs before slamming them back down to the field. Football is a violent sport, and the new animations depict that in ways that feel realistic. When a big hit happens on the field you feel it, just like you do when you see it during a game – just, you know, without the weird guilt about whether you should enjoy watching it or not.
This year also brings improvements to the Skill-Based Passing system, adding new animations that better represent the scenarios players are in when catching passes. My favorites are the new diving catches, which look spectacular and make those seemingly out-of-reach balls more likely to be caught. It also means buy mut coins is better at tracking player momentum, so hitting your receivers at the right point in their routes is more important – they need to have enough time to turn upfield or juke defenders. These are great changes; you get fewer of those “Oh, come on! You could have caught that!” moments, and plays just look and feel more authentic when you see them executed.