Madden 2005 Hints

When you are in franchise mode there is a glitch/secret that I guess the Devs. forgot, you can change the position of players. Just go to rosters, View Roster, and put up the Player Managment screen for a player on another team (e.g your the Bears, Go to Peyton Manning's screen) Go to edit Player, and Go to Player Information. Here you can change the name and such, also, manning's position, change him to a WR, or whaever you choose. His rating will significantly decrease and you can trade for him using a very low player (e.g. Jonathon quin, or a 7th rounder)
If the player's Position can not be changed, this is because the team needs to have a person to fill in for him, or an extra person in the needs column, you can give a team an extra person by trading...or you can switch someone's position into the needed position.

Create a player and make him a PUNTER set all his QB attributes (speed, run power, passing etc.) to 99 and his punting attributes to 0, create him then buy him for 200k. Then, in the depth chart set him from a punter to a QB.

If you get a big gain on a play, preferably a passing play, do hurry-up offense. If your o-lineman and quarterback are quick enough, you should be able to start your next play before the d-lineman reach you. This will give you a 'free play' as the defense will be penalized for being offside.

Before playing a home game, enter the "Owner's" menu and set your "Advertising" as high as possible. After you play your game, return to the "Owner's" menu and set "Advertising" to zero, then simulate the rest of the games for that week. You will not be charged for the advertising, but your attendance will be higher. Do this before every home game to keep your attendance high without paying extra.

This trick will allow you to sign any player, no matter how big their default salary is, to a three year low-salary contract. You must do this before starting a franchise. First, edit the player's attributes from whatever they are currently down so that their overall rating is exactly 75. Depending on the position, you should be able to achieve this by simply lowering one or sometimes two of their attributes. Make sure to make a note what the original rating was so you can store the value later. Once all players you are editing are at an overall rating of 75, release the players to free agency. After releasing each player (you may have to sign some "no-name" players to your roster to maintain roster requirements, but you can release those temporary players later), back out of the roster management screen to the main menu. Choose the option to "Continue without saving" (this may not be necessary). Reenter the roster management screen and select "Free Agents." Go to whichever team you want to sign the players to and start looking for your players. You should notice that their new requested salaries and contract lengths will be for three years at a very low salary (depending on the position). Once you have signed all of your players back (and released the temporary players), go back to editing the players and return them to the original ratings. Note: According to the manual, your players will become upset if they feel they are being underpaid for how good they are performing. You will more than likely have to re-sign some contracts throughout the year, but with the cap room you will save.