Game Two: At Home Against the Pack - ennepetal's Blog

ennepetal's Blog

Game Two: At Home Against the Pack

Posted on November 14, 2008 at 10:09 PM.

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It might be notable that in addition to playing on "My Skill," I also let Madden call all my plays. Either that seems fair or I'm mostly just lazy.

Wisely, I also recalled that I was somewhat stupid.

I completely neglected to adjust depth charts before the first game. In checking them before game two, I realized that I had a few guys in the wrong spots. I think maybe even a lineman I had signed to be the starter was completely off the charts altogether in the first game.

With that corrected, I go into game two wondering how my adjustments will work.

What I didn't remember until I had already started the game was that I failed to make adjustments to the scouting activities. Hence, I might be looking at the same 15 guys two weeks in a row. I really wish there were a way to tell the game which features you care to perform and which ones you do not. I find all the scouting crud to be cumbersome and boring. Just give me the reports before the draft. I'm not interested in working a bunch of screen with text on it (I'm also talking to you NBA 2K whatever). I mostly just want to play football and make personnel decisions. There ought to be a way to skip all the other stuff without sacrificing your franchise's fortunes.

Also, I decide to "train" the "active team." I'm not sure how this feature is best utilized, but I want to build up my best three offensive players a bit, so I start there.

I struggle mightily with the wide receiver training, so Calvin Johnson will simply have to improve on his own.

I do okay with Drew Stanton and Kevin Smith, but had it on the lowest level, earning a mere point where several are needed to make any impact on the players' skills.

Oh well.

The first quarter starts our pretty good in that the Packers immediately take the ball and just move down the field with ease. However, once reaching the 23-yard line, holding is called, eventually setting up a third-and-long. Aaron Rodgers floats one to the corner trying to hit Donald Driver and, surprise, surprise, Gerald Alexander goes up and brings it down.

Kitna directs a quick three-and-out to give the ball back in good field position to the Pack.

On second down, Rodgers gets drilled by Jared DeVries and fumbles. Though Green Bay recovers, they can't make any headway offensively and have to punt.

As the quarter ends, the Lions are near midfield and driving.

Ah, but that's where the drive ends actually and Nick Harris delivers his first of two punts exiting the playing field at the ten-yard line. Potential first half MVP honors have to be shared with Leigh Bodden, however, who is all over Donald Driver knocking everything down that comes in his direction until Rodgers tries to force one in and is intercepted by Mr. Bodden (if only he were this good in real life).

The pick leads to a short drive for a long field goal, giving the Lions a relatively cheap 3-0 lead, despite giving up 101 yards passing and really doing little to nothing on offense.

Quarter three provides yet more dull football. The Lions and Packers exchange three-and-out drives, but somehow Detroit ends up in Packer territory after the swap. This, of course, leads to another brilliant short drive capped with a Jason Hanson FG.

As the quarter expires, however, the Packers are again nearing the red zone. My experiences thus far with My Skill have me believing there is a holding penalty or turnover coming soon.

The finish was nearly as interesting as the real-life game, with a lot fewer fireworks.

First, I was incorrect in my prediction. Instead of giving me every opportunity to stop the drive, Rodgers actually dropped a pass into the corner of the end zone, where Driver reached out with one hand for a spectacular catch, leading to a 7-6 advantage.

The Lions are inept for a pair of drives, failing to take full advantage of yet another Rodgers interception and the Green Bay attempts to run clock while getting no first downs.

Getting the ball back on a punt just after the two minute warning, however, the Lions engineer a nice drive, capping it with a toss to Roy Williams who is in single man coverage while running a post-flag route, which is an easy TD (technically, my first truly 'earned' TD of the season).

The Packers end up moving the ball to midfield before Rodgers throws pick number four with ten seconds left to ice the game for the undefeated Lions.

So...

Kitna 22-32 for 208 and a TD with no INTs
Rodgers 20-35 for 217, 1 TD and 4 INTs

I think if you took away all the picks, the Packers win handily and the numbers are maybe a reasonable representative of what one might have expected for that game, but the turnovers make it a mess.

Ryan Grant ran 20 times for only 65 yards. Even injured, he'd do double that against the Lions D. I think that's some overcompensation on the part of My Skills.

Similary, Rudi did another 1.7 ypc performance. I'm hating that. I don't want him to be some world beater, but he's killing me!

Funnily enough, my Madden skill levels on offense have plummeted and the defensive numbers skyrocketed, taking me from 477 two games ago to 537 now (go ahead and laugh), but now instead of the offense all being near All Madden and the D all being seriously near the bottom, they're all close to the middle.

I'm hoping this all shows it's going to even out a bit and give some more-realistic results soon.