EA Sports Madden NFL 26 was the most significant overhaul of Franchise mode and coaching in a long time. But the Custom Coach Creator is just not good. Look, I love football. I grew up on it, and some of the best days are sitting at the local outdoor bar for 9 hours a day, drinking and watching my favorite team and teams I couldn’t care less about with friends.
Football, like any sport, is a unifier of sorts. But while I’ve always been in love with college ball, last year was the first time I started caring about the NFL. And you know how I picked my team? Well, I picked the hottest Head Coach.
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And that’s how I became a Detroit Lions fan (something my husband told me I would come to regret once I looked at their franchise history. But I didn’t care because former tight end-turned-head coach, who gives the best inspirational speeches from his very big podium, Dan Campbell, would be there.
But the competition for my NFL allegiance wasn’t easy. You see, the NFL has seen an increase in younger coaches coming in to take the reins of different franchises. And with that, the floodgates of hot headcoaches have opened. Only if you played Madden 26 would you know it. Because, for all of the great character creation moments that EA proper has built using the Frostbite engine, EA Sports just can’t seem to bring any semblance of attractiveness to their custom coach creator.
The current create-a-coach character creator is just about as simple as it gets. You don’t choose hair styles or even skintone, nope, you choose a head. Yes, you choose a head, and sometimes it has a hat, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes the complexion of the face matches the neck; other times it doesn’t. And even more so, the majority of the faces just look like playdough of varying hues. There are over 200 head types in Madden 26‘s custom coach creation. But they rarely align.
The late and great John Madden defined Madden as a game, and for much of my life, whether in college ball or the NFL, that older white-haired man is what I just assumed all coaches were. They were old, definitely not athletic anymore, and just damn good at what they did. But that isn’t the league right now as the generations begin to pass the baton of their franchises.
Where players on Reddit for CFB have been asking for more uniform and equipment options to customize players even more, I am here, standing in my truth, begging EA Sports to let us take advantage of an NFL that is getting younger. While my desire to make my custom coach in Dan Campbell’s or DeMeco Ryans’ image is strong, the reality is that the choices for heads in the custom coach creation ignore the reality of a changing league.
The modern NFL coach is kind of really hot?
Outside of the two I just mentioned with Campbell (Lions) at 49 years old and Ryan (Texans) at 41 years old, the NFL also has Kellen Moore (Saints), who is just a little older than me at 36. But they get even younger when you look at when Head Coaches signed on with their teams, with the youngest being Sean McVay (Rams), who signed at 30 years old and is now 39.
Add in that Kyle Shanahan (49ers) consistently tops hot coach lists with Kevin Stefanski (Browns), McDaniel, Kevin O’Connell (Vikings), Nick Sirianni (Eagles), Dave Canales (Panthers), Mike McDaniel (Dolphins) and Matt LaFleur (Packers), who are all in their early or mid-40s. You have everything to meet the growing audience of millennials who also fall into that age bracket.
But even without the youth heading the league, Campbell is also an example of a player turned coach whose conditioning and athleticism weren’t left behind in the transition, as you can see in HBO’s Hard Knocks series. The oldest on my little list, Campbell, is still only 49 years old.
But we can take it even further and talk about Steelers HC Mike Tomlin, who signed at 34 and is now 53 years old. NFL Head Coaches are becoming more diverse across ages as the last generational dynasty builders begin to retire. And yes, my beloved EA Sports, that also brings hottness.
And this brings me back to the thesis of this plea to EA: why not just give us hot dudes instead? I know it sounds simplistic, but the reality is that when you look at the other character creator for the Superstar mode in Madden, well, you can make hot players, and more importantly, just players you want to be, hot or not.
In the Superstar creator, you pick your face, skintone, face markings (acne scars, redness, freckles, etc), eye shape, eye color, nose shape, ear shape, lip fullness, jawline, chin shape, tattoos, and a four-step hair creation process. Oh, and they have sliders for almost every option. But that is the case in other EA Sports titles as well. To put it even more simply, they have the technology, right there in the game.
Couple that in with the fact that the EA Sports team helped BioWare accomplish their diversity of skintone and astonishing hair strand tech that made Dragon Age: The Veilguard stand out among other character creators, and it’s hard to understand why we don’t see this translated into the coaching aspect of EA Sports titles.
We don’t need to have excessive sliders or body proportion adjustments, but we do need some agency to create characters that we can spend a year with. Especially if you’re in an Online Franchise like I am. That coach is me for the next year.
Custom Coach Creator in Madden 26 is a shell of the Superstar Character Creator, for a character you see more.
For coaches, you choose from one of 249 predesigned heads with predetermined hair, skin color, eyes, and then a physique (with four nearly identical body types for men and two for women), and clothing options that leave a lot to be desired (except for shoes, which is the most expansive customization choice). It’s simplistic, at best, but it also doesn’t do justice to the kind of developments that sports games have been at the forefront of, especially when it comes to hair.
Now, it would be unfair to say that the Custom Coach creator hasn’t gotten better over time. It has expanded over time with more head options, and it’s been reflected in other games like CFB 26. In Madden 26, we also have the option to be a woman Head Coach, which was added into the game last year. But to be honest, I don’t know how I feel about it. While I respect EA Sports’ idea to include female football fans in the creation portion of the game (for obvious reasons), I find myself in a complicated situation with the rudimentary character creation in it all.
With so little attention given to the female character models, the erasing of most feminine features for those female character choices, and only two body types to choose from, and I guess some out-of-place leggings, I wish they hadn’t added us at all. As more women are rising in the NFL in positions they used to be locked out of, it’s cool to reflect on it, but when you do it so poorly, it leaves your target audience (yeah, that’s me) wishing there was so much more. But god, even the women coaches can’t be hot.
Please, EA, let any of the Custom Coach Characters have a chance at being hot.
While sports games may not get the respect they deserve come awards season or end-of-the-year lists, they are just as immersive as RPGs and offer just as much depth, strategy, and character development along the way. Sure, some people want to go on that journey and live out their dreams as a player, but for me, it’s all about building a powerhouse Franchise or dynasty and having a legacy as a coach.
The investment in character creation for players comes from an understanding of the RPG element of the game. Your height, weight, and build directly impact the archetype you choose to play as, how you top out on certain skills, and ultimately what you’re capable of. There is thought put into who you are as a player because you’re the one on the field. But by the same token, seeing that reflected in coaching would go a long way for those less interested in solo play, and more interested in the online Franchise element of Madden.
That same level of care and personalization should be reflected there as well. And suppose Madden continues on its current trajectory after its massive coaching carousel overhaul, which added more player agency in decision-making and development. In that case, the personalization I get when I build my team, playbook, and everything else should be reflected as we build those characters too.
As the coaching system in Madden deepens to meet CFB’s take on the role, we need a change in the Custom Coach creation too (for both games, really). EA Sports has an opportunity to represent its players and represent the league itself. Younger, hotter, and ultimately just really invested in football.
Madden NFL 26 is available now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.
