The best and worst of Madden NFL’s new ‘homefield advantages’

One of the big features in Madden NFL 22 is the addition of “homefield advantages,” which are unique edges given to teams when they play at home. On Thursday EA Sports released the advantages for all 32 NFL teams, which range from passive boosts to stamina, to truly game-altering abilities that will be infuriating to play against.

Let’s dive in to some of the best, and worst homefield advantages so you can prep your team for the fall — or just be sad you got something as bad as the Bears did. Poor Bears.

This is going to be a nightmare for teams that only have one elite go-to receiver. The prospect of having a conversion play drawn up only to have that receiver run a wheel or some other dumb play could be debilitating.

Nobody is punting in Madden. And if they are, it isn’t often.

This is a whole lot of advantages rolled into one. I’m interested to see how this “harder time changing direction” plays out. Washington has a similar advantage, but that seems like it could get extremely annoying while playing in the secondary.

This is the worst advantage in the NFL. I’m sorry Bears fans ... but this is just sad.

Hot routes are a staple of playing online to throw off opponents, and the chance to have them fail — or confuse receivers and burn time is excellent.

Unless there’s some ludicrous change to the frequency of holding penalties in Madden NFL 22 this is functionally pointless. It might only come up one or two times in 20 games.