John Madden has a low tolerance for cheesy play in the video game bearing his name. āI donāt like to see stuff that isnāt real, or isnāt practical,ā he says, ālike going for it long on fourth down.ā He would, however, blitz you every single down, if you gave him back one of his old linebackers.
āI did this in a couple of games,ā said the former coach of the Oakland Raiders, which I guess doesnāt make it unreal, or too impractical. āBut Iād just blitz them every play. Iād have Ted Hendricks out there at linebacker and then Ken Stabler on offense.
āNow that I really see how much havoc [Hendricks] could cause, and how I can move him around out there, I think he would have been great for the game,ā Madden told Kotaku today. The 23rd edition of his game hits retail shelves on Tuesday.
Madden, 75, admits he doesnāt actually play the video game very well, so heās not vowing to whip everyone with just a controller and the Mad Stork rushing the quarterback. Maddenās Madden bragging rights are in being the guy whose video game is bringing kids to the sport smarter about its fundamentals, he believes, and better versed in its principles than the generations of kids who grew up without it.
āRaheem Morris, the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he says thatās how he learned football,ā Madden said. āHe thought thatās why he became a head coach at such a young age, was playing Madden. [Morris is 34] Thatās where these players today can get an advantage. You get a different look in the game. You see the whole, not just one position.ā
Morris, whose Bucs won 10 games last year, has told writers he āmajoredā in Madden while at Hofstra and that the game, even back in the 1990s, convinced everyone who played it they could be a head coach, too.
When Madden himself was a coach, beginning as a college assistant in the 1960s, it goes without saying there was no video game inspiring such confidence. There was barely any video. Coaches had film, and there were a ton of books, and in the off-season you went to a clinic where someone drew Xs and Os on a chalkboard. Very top-down, and no interactivity.
Then you went out and coached kids who had never seen a playbook. Today, they get one every August, and they learn to speak its language at a very young age.
āI was watching my eight-year-old grandson playing the other night, and just his knowledge of the game is amazing,ā Madden said. āThe whole game, knowing plays, and defenses, and rules and terminology, and heās using the right words. Iām surprised hearing it all come out.ā
Really? So his grandkid is coming to the line, sending a receiver in motion, reading the zone coverage and hitting his tight end underneath?
āWell, heās eight years old,ā Madden says, āheās in a league where, if he wants to run, heāll run and when he wants to throw it, he plays quarterback and if he wants to receive heās a receiver.ā
Madden stopped coaching in 1978, of course becoming the television analyst whose work helped bring him and Electronic Arts together in 1988 for John Madden Football. Though he retired from the booth in 2009, he remains an active consultant on the Madden NFL series. Each year, the design team visits him at his studio in California.
When he evaluates the game, āI donāt think about having a great time playing the game,ā Madden says flatly. āYou know, they say if itās in the game, itās in the game, well, what I do is watch the game. I try to watch every [NFL] game and just watch the trends, see what theyāre doing now, and whether that is in the video game, so weāre playing the same game that theyāre playing in the NFL.ā
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