So last night’s game against Technoverse’s Bears was a perfect illustration of the difference between a pretty good Madden player and a really good Madden player. Despite putting up 31 points and holding Forte to 24yds on 10 carries, and the Bears overall to 267 yds of offense, I lost 38-31. You really can’t make mistakes against a player like Techno and hope to win. I didn’t make many, but he took advantage of every single one for either a TD or a long gain - of his 267 yards, 140 came on 3 plays.
The game started well for me, I stopped his first drive and marched for a TD. (BTW, it seems like every 4th down the game puts me into a weird playcalling screen that only has punt block formations and I have to back all the way out and find “Special Teams” in order to pick a return play. Does this happen to anyone else?) Next series, I made my first big mistake - blitzed the LB that was supposed to cover the flat and didn’t get over with safety help quickly enough to stop a 35 yard pass to his FB. Managed to hold him to a FG though and then scored a 2nd TD to make it 14-3.
2nd quarter started with a complete defensive breakdown on my part. It’s like my brain decided to take a play off. First of all I froze at the play screen and didn’t pick a defense in time so the game just put me into a base Cover 2. That wouldn’t have been terrible except that for some reason I proceeded to play my safety as if I had actually called the defense I wanted. Yeah, I don’t know, it’s a mystery to me too. In any case, it led to one of the most open receivers I’ve ever seen and a 50 yd TD for the Bears to make it 14-10. I still wasn’t too worried - it was a one time lapse and he still hadn’t even slowed down my offense. Sure enough, I marched for a 3rd TD (a pretty corner route to TO in the back of the end zone) to make it 21-10. He responded with a nice drive to make it 21-17. My offense took a pretty big blow when my rookie HB LeRon James, who had been nigh unstoppable (50yds on 6 carries, 34 yds on 3 recepts) went out for the rest of the game with an injury. Not being able to pick up 5-10 yards per run really took my offense out of rhythm and I started pressing. The game really turned on 1 play near the end of the 1st half. I had managed to get some momentum back and had 3rd and 5 inside the Bears’ 30. I was hoping to score, go into halftime with either a 7 or 10 point lead, and get the ball back to start the 2nd half. I had Owens running a 10yd curl from the slot, tried to get it to him a half beat early because there was a seam in the coverage and either because it was early or because it was just a bad throw the ball sailed over his head and right into the arms of the Bears’ safety who proceeded to run it back 80 yds for a TD. It was the only turnover of the game, but it was a killer. 21-24 at the half.
The 2nd half was somewhat less interesting. Basically I gave up 2 big plays: a 97yd kickoff return by Hester and a 50yd TD run on a weak-side toss that I knew to watch for, had been watching for the entire game, and then when it came completely blew it because I cheated my safety to the strong side. (Plus, my open field tackling skills are mediocre at best.) I did manage to get my offense back on track and put up some points, but with James out and me playing from behind, Techno was able to sit back in zones and keep me from getting anything deep and I just took too much time. I did close to within 7 with a minute left, but I have no idea how to pull off an onside kick in Madden.
Speaking of kicking, I suck at it. I’m fine offline, but I can never get the timing right in online games. I mention this just so everyone knows that if it’s 4th-and-makeable anywhere between the 20 and the 40, I’m going to go for it rather then fail a FG. If this bothers anyone from a realism standpoint, just pretend this post is the press conference where the coach says that he’s lost confidence in his kicker.
One random note: I’ve mentioned before that weird run-off of the play clock after change of possession. You’d think by now I’d have learned to deal with it, but once again I got caught for a delay of game penalty. In a very cool move, Techno declined the penalty. Thanks. (Although I didn’t know that you could decline a dead ball foul. Then again, Madden seems to enforce holding calls from the spot of the foul, so it’s playing by its own rules already)
Anyway, great game Techno.
BTW, Fuzzyslug, that DE of mine that gave you so much trouble when we played? Out for the season.
