Who would you rather ask for advice? A novice? Or an expert? Okay, I'll make it even easier. What if the advice you needed was what football play to call and the expert was NFL Hall-of-Fame Coach John Madden? I usually choose my plays by instinct or from past experience with the game. Have I been missing out on the secret of winning Madden Football games? I decided to see just how good a coach Mr. Madden is.

Madden NFL '08 once again features the Ask Madden option for play-calling. I've played just about every edition of Madden (yes, like many other people, I abandoned it for NFL 2K5) and I've never used the Ask Madden feature.

What would happen if I used every play the coach suggested on offense and defense? No audibles, no input from me other than running the plays I was given. I would try it in several situations including different difficulty levels, random teams, best teams vs. worst, and teams of my choice.

I first tried the easiest level with random teams. When I play on the Rookie setting I normally score between 50 and 80 points or so and usually shutout the CPU or hold it to less than 10 points. I played as the Tampa BayBucs and the CPU was the Carolina Panthers. The final score was Tampa Bay 45 Carolina 0.

Madden frequently called the same offensive plays back-to-back and when he did I frequently got hit for a loss or no gain (mostly on running plays). He called mostly short passing plays and my QB (Jeff Garcia) went 10 out of 15 for 145 yards and twoTDs (and a nice 109.7 passer rating). On defense the plays he called allowed me to shut down the Panthers' running game and hold DeShaun Foster to eight carries for seven yards.

I played a follow-up to this game with the same teams but with me calling the plays and Tampa Bay won 63-7. I didn't call any plays back-to-back and on defense blitzed a lot more than Madden had suggested.

Listening to the coach held back my scoring and led to some yardage losses I normally wouldn't have taken. On defense (and I admit to not being the best defensive play caller) I did pretty much the same as I do on my own but Madden suggested more conservative plays (I like to blitz!).

On the opposite end of the difficulty spectrum, I did the same experiments with All-Madden's much faster and smarter CPU.

My first game pitted random teams Detroit and New Orleans against each other. I controlled the Lions. The final score was (gulp) the Saints 97 and the Lions 0. The worst game I've ever played on Madden. Granted, I don't usually play on All-Madden difficulty, but I'm not THAT bad a player.

An explanation (or excuse) for this massacre is the curious play-calling of coach Madden. Again, he called the same play back-to-back a number of times (his favorite this game being SEQuickout ). The skill and intelligence of the CPU on this level of play makes it difficult enough to pass consistently and successfully but after I ran the same passing play repeated times I was being shut down and JonKitna threw 13 interceptions and had a 0.0 passer rating.

But it wasn't just the repeated plays that led to my loss and were, to be honest, stupid. One example is on a third and inches in my own territory with 1:09 left in the 1st half and the Lions already down 45-0 Madden calls for the Hail Mary play. This, of course, was picked off and the half ended with me losing 52-0.

I basically had no chance of getting back in the game by going with Madden's play suggestions. In the second half, with me being down by dozens of points, the coach was still calling running plays up the middle. On defense it wasn't much better. By choosing the Ask Madden plays I was never in the ballgame.

Looking at my research it seems it didn't matter much what teams I chose. Madden's playcalling, especially on offense, was detrimental to my chances of winning the football game. On Rookie level I won regardless of whether I went with Madden's or my own plays--the only difference was the margin of victory. On the higher levels, Madden's play choices made it more difficult for me to compete and pretty much made it impossible to win the game.

I don't, honestly, know many people who choose to use Ask Madden. I never had and won't use it again after this little experiment. My conclusion is that if you are a novice at football games (or know very little about NFL football in general), letting Madden pick your plays on Rookie level probably won't hurt you too much. But never, ever, (unless you want to watch your opponent dominate the game) use Ask Madden when playing on the higher difficulties.