Was doing my newest playthrough last night, and on a whim I had Shadowheart use speak with animals on the rats in the gauntlet of what. Totally unexpected different dialogue

Just piggybacking off my last comment (because the idea hit me as I hit send):

The stamina/endurance/attrition thing could play into free agency as well; owners and GMs who are more risk averse might not want to invest big money in a player with has a higher chance of injury, while owners and GMs on the opposite end of the scale might focus more on overall ratings.

I wouldn't mind seeing evolving playbooks too; if I'm a coach running a vertical offense and I higher an offensive coordinator who likes to power run the playbook should change to reflect that

My pipe dream is seeing players dealing with things off the field both good and bad. My star rookie can't play this week because he sprained his ankle in an off field incident, my 25 year old guard is taking time away midweek to celebrate the birthday of his first child, maybe the humble late round stud from a small college becomes a diva once he gets his first big contract extension

Franchise mode scouting needs to be completely redone. It shouldn't be 3 or 4 people doing scouting, it should be an extension of the front office; and how much money you invest in scouting can effect both your profits and the accuracy of scouting reports. If EA is doing both college and pro American football then it needs to lean into the different tiers of colleges; this would help late draft steals (finding a cornerstone player from an unknown college could a great reward for investing in scouting)

Contracts need to be completely reworked. Guaranteed money, sighing bonuses, incentives all need to be added. If a WR wants 5 years $80 mil, he might sign for less if you offer more guaranteed money and/or easily reachable incentives.

I want to see stamina expanded into stamina, endurance and attrition. Stamina dictates the energy burned on a play, endurance is the overall pool or rating(like and energy bar sort of) and attrition is the season long effect of playing time (a player with higher attrition could be your workhorse, while a low attrition player might need to be situational to avoid injuries)

I can go on and on and on about the flaws of franchise mode