My Skill Lions vs. Reality Lions: Game One - ennepetal's Blog

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My Skill Lions vs. Reality Lions: Game One

Posted on November 14, 2008 at 03:12 PM.

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As I should always remember to declare up front, I'm not too skilled on the sticks and don't bother to do a lot of practice. I just like to play the game.

Over the last two years, I've gotten a bit too much into reading about how Madden fails, rather than just jumping in and playing. As of today, I just figure I'll play, flaws disregarded, and see how the game plays out against the reality of the season.

My first thought is that it would have been unlikely for anyone at EA to think the Lions would be winless as of mid November. As a fan and close observer, I thought it was possible, but I don't think even the most-cynical fan would have thought it likely.

Hence, going into game one, there has to have been some amount of optimism. The Lions showed some level of competence in winning seven games the year before, but I definitely assumed a bit of a step back with a lack of quality players on the roster, a still-questionable offensive line, and a much tougher schedule.

Starting on the road against a bad Atlanta team starting a rookie at QB made me think it reasonable the Lions would start the year off on the right foot.

In reality, we all now know the Falcons to be a tough team and that Matt Ryan is a cut above your typical rookie signal-caller.

In my first game of my Madden franchise, however, it played out more to what I would have thought would happen.

As I sat in a local bar and watched in horror as Ryan's first career NFL pass went for a long score, I sat here in my big green chair and watched Brian Kelly intercepted the young collection of pixels' first regular season pass, which ended up being the first of three on the day, helping the Lions to win handily by a score of 27-13. Ryan still completed 21 of 34 for 202 yards, so it seems the game thinks he has some potential.

The thing I don't like about the My Skill thing thus far is that since I was able to do pretty well on offense on the Madden test thingy, it's nearly impossible for me to run the ball at all, which maybe is a good thing as that definitely mirrors the Lions running game in real life. It's just frustrating to see Rudi Johnson average 1.7 yards a carry.

Somehow, I still manage to throw reasonably well. Jon Kitna finished 10-19 for 176, giving him the stay of execution that is only delaying the inevitable youth movement that needs to happen both in real life and here in my living room. Then again, when you take away the 84-yard scoring toss to Calvin Johnson who had man coverage with the safety coming in for a blitz, that's only 92 yards otherwise, which is okay for nine completions, but not stellar by any means. Stay tuned for the Drew Stanton show.

Which reminds me, I'm also not the sort to fret over every detail trying to mimic the NFL as it does play out. That is, I'm not going to obsessively rotate Kevin Smith and Johnson in the backfield the way the Lions do to try to make it close to reality. I don't really understand that mentality. I take the team as published in the game and then try to make that team better however I can. I think Rudi was a Lion with the online roster I got, but I also signed a free agent lineman who is not currently a Lion in real life and I have NOOOOOO intention of trading Roy Williams or trying to ink Daunte Culpepper (he may even be on another roster already). These are MY Lions and I'm happy to try to not repeat the mistakes of the jokesters in Allen Park.

Marching on...

On the other side of the ball, my weak skills on defense definitely are making the console dominate the opponent. In the most-unrealistic portion of the game (if you discount the Lions winning the game, that is), is that Michael Turner gained a mere 21 yards on 14 carries. Even the most-casual fan of NFL football would have been able to tell you up front that even with eight men in the box, the Lions aren't keeping anyone down that low. Hence, I was a little disappointed with that. i wanted to win, but not with the computer AI making the Atlanta rushing attack completely inept.

Overall, the picks might have been a little much and the Lions defense played a little too well to really be a good reflection of what an optimistic Lions fan might have thought was going to happen in week one. I expected to win a bit of a battle game, but not to dominate defensively the way I did, or, rather, the way the My Skill handicap allowed me to do. I hope to see some better balance as the schedule brings the teams known to be good when the game was released.