Hey folks.  I'm really enjoying Madden 11, but one of the things I'm having trouble with is the create-a-player stuff.  I know, I know, this should all be pretty basic, but I haven't played a Madden game since about 2001 or so, and the times, they are a-changin'.  
 
I guess what I'm trying to do is fill a pre-existing team with my own created characters.  I like my football games to be a little fun and campy, so I tend to create all sorts of assorted characters like Homer Simpson as a QB, Mr. T as a defensive tackle, Barbara Walters as a center... you get the idea.  I've been doing this in sort of a half-assed way.  I've been creating characters to fill specific roles for the Raiders by creating the player and putting them in a team that doesn't have a full roster, like the Bears or the 49ers.  I then trade those players over to the Raiders for the least qualified person on the team.  The problem with this is that there's no option outside of franchise mode to turn off the salary caps, meaning I can only have about six perfect players on the team.  I've seen a couple of my create-a-characters somehow become free agents, but I have no idea how that happened or why.  So I guess my question is, how can I create characters and have them immediately become free agents?  I know I can hire them in franchise mode due to the lack of a salary cap, and I have no intention of really playing much of the game for a good long while outside of that particular mode. 
 
Any helpful tips or suggestions are greatly appreciated.  You guys are the bees' knees.

I love how you play sports games. Okay, here's my advice, as someone who has never played Madden 11, but who plays the NBA 2K games. Considering Madden is the biggest sports game out there, I think it's probably safe to say that they have some sort of file share system over Xbox Live, where you can download other people's created players. Look into that, man. With 2K10, I found lots of created celebrities, lots of authentically created classic characters, and some funny characters. They made a really impressive Michael Jackson, for instance. I'm sure Madden has got to have that kind of feature, so look into that.
 
When I play games, I try to make my own silly characters too. Mortal Kombat characters (I played through 2K10's My Player mode as Johnny Cage), movie characters, epic dudes like Mr. T, etc. It's freaking hard work, though. We can'tt be the only ones that do this, though, so hopefully you can copy characters others have already made.