The NFL season is now finally upon us. Preseason came to an end on August 25th and final roster cuts for all 32 NFL teams were due by Tuesday, August 26th. Teams were tasked with trimming their rosters from 90 to 53 players as we head into the regular season. But getting all of these changes into Madden can take a bit of time.
Although Madden NFL 26 has been available since mid-August, the game's rosters have only been mostly accurate. Roster changes made throughout the preseason don't typically show up in the game until the first major roster update of the year. Because of this delay, you may want to hold off on starting your franchise.
EA hasn't announced exactly when the Week 1 roster update will drop, but looking at past trends, we can probably expect it to arrive sometime this week. In previous years, the Week 1, 53-man roster update has come hours before the Thursday night game that kicks off the NFL season. That's likely to be the case with Madden 26.
This year's NFL season kicks off with a Thursday night matchup between the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles on September 4th at 8:20 p.m. ET. The latest roster update should be live by the time this game kicks off, which is actually pretty fitting seeing as how one of the biggest moves this offseason will be reflected in it.
As you may have heard, the Dallas Cowboys recently traded star defensive end Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers. The trade officially took place on Thursday, August 28th, marking the end to a months-long standoff between Parsons and the Cowboys. This is one of the many roster changes that you'll want to wait to update in Madden 26 before kicking off your franchise, unless, of course, you're a Cowboys fans and don't want to say goodbye to Parsons. Funny enough, even Madden in-game trade feature rejected the trade proposal between the two sides, which saw Dallas receive two first round picks and defensive tackle Kenny Clark in exchange for Parsons.
The Parsons trade is just one of thousands of roster updates EA has to make in the game before the start of the NFL season. Once the season begins, EA will continue to update player ratings depending on how they perform in real life.
So to recap, expect the accurate 53-man roster update to come before the start of week 1 on Thursday, September 4th. Keep in mind that if you have already started a franchise in Madden 26, you'll need to completely restart once the roster update drops if you want the latest and most accurate rosters from EA. Unfortunately, you can't update the rosters once your franchise has started.
Madden NFL 26 is now available for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC.