Offline franchise mode has long been the most popular and important mode in the Madden NFL series and this year EA has decided to essentially gut it to promote their new "connected career mode" that removes most of the popular and simple features that gamers are used to from offline franchise mode.

- No fantasy draft option.

- Players cannot be edited from within CCM - ratings OR jersey numbers, equipment; this is a very basic feature.

- Users cannot use their own customized rosters to start a career with.

- NCAA draft class imports have been excluded. I understand this will return next year after they figure out how to get it just right, but it ruins the career mode to have fake rookie players. Until imports are returned, users should be given the ability to edit 'fake' players into real ones - or to simply customize the draft class before the draft.

- Multi-player offline franchise has been removed. This was one of the most popular features on the game and many friends/family played this mode exclusively. Now it's gone, taking any family/multiplayer fun out of the Madden experience.

The goal here is to have EA return the classic offline franchise mode to the game via a post-release patch. If they can do this with Madden Ultimate Team they can do it with offline franchise mode.