The Madden Challenge is kicking off this month and so are other local tournaments here in South Florida. Here at the University of Miami, I’ve been practicing to prepare for any tournaments that I may come across, so I recently hopped on Xbox Live and tested my game online. I’m entering a local tournament up in Fort Lauderdale, hosted by the South Florida Madden Ballers on Oct. 18. The winner takes home $500.

I used to be a machine at Madden during the PS2 days. I finished in the top 32 in the Madden Challenge two years in a row in '05 and '06 under the alias "The Law." I even won the game every year when the game came out at the mall. At this point though, with the Xbox 360 Madden engine, it is a whole new feel and it seems that all the friends I used to destroy back then can compete with me now.

I have never been one to play cheap, dirty, or abuse exploits in a game. Nor will you ever find me acting the way the Madden Nation players do during a matchup. Those guys ruin the fun of the game, but I do expect to encounter some of them in the upcoming tournament. I’ve always felt that I can take on those clowns since none of them really show much strategy, so maybe I will bump into one of them in this tournament. So with that in mind, I will evaluate what has been working for me and what hasn’t while I've been prepping for tournament play.

Madden tournaments can be great fun or a reason to hate humanity.

Frustrations

The frustrations have mounted over the weeks of playing. Like a lot of you gamers out there, I have been stuck playing this game while looking for the old excitement of the past generations. Without much else to resort to but some older NFL games, I don’t want to break it off with Madden after being loyal for so long -- but it’s almost at that point where I can’t make it work anymore.

After taking many losses online and off in this year’s Madden, I was beginning to question my skills. Am I past my prime? Should I hang it up and move on to NHL 09 or NBA 2K9? Then I realized that the stick skills don’t really count as much on the 360 as compared to those sweet PS2 days. The current-gen Madden basically has a "sliding" feeling since players moves in herky-jerky ways as if they are robots. It’s not as easy to shake guys out of their shoes. It’s more about how many times you can press the truck stick while being wrapped up by tacklers. Not ballin’.

I am an experienced Madden baller -- don’t get me wrong. I had the PS2 version down to science. It came to a point where I understood each movement and assignment for the players. The game had a mind of its own and until you began to understand how it thought, reacted, and played, you wouldn't be dominant. I am still trying to understand John Madden’s next-generation mind, that crafty, crafty, old man.

America's team may be faltering on the field, but they certainly will be popular for Maddenites.

Evaluation

I have to work on being more consistent overall if I’m going to take home the paper this weekend. My online matches have been rough, but as the weeks have progressed, my defense has been improving and that is my biggest strength. I haven’t been able to light people up on the offensive side of the ball since Madden 2006 so I learned to focus in on the defense. A 99-yard INT returned for a TD tonight by Hobbs is a good sign that my zone blitzes in short passing situations are becoming more effective.

Playing online over the past week, I have yet to find a way to stop Romo (so maybe it's a good thing that he's hurt now). It’s very hard when a passer like Romo can throw with such precision on the run while buying time with his legs. I have gone as far as putting Adalius Thomas and Mike Vrable at defensive end positions to try and cut back on his scrambling ability, but there is almost no solution when a strong Madden player is using the Cowboys. However, Thomas and Vrable got pressure on the QB and led me to victory online earlier this week when I played a level 13 opponent; but obviously that’s not always the case.

My approach on offense is much like how the Patriots approached offense before Moss. I will adjust to the team and the defense I face. I will take what you give me and try to exploit the best matchups possible. So far, the offense has been strong and I have been cutting down on the INTs. Maroney is a good back in this game since he has some speed, hands, and the ability to break tackles here and there. Also, by using Welker and Watson early, I can set up the big plays deep to Moss later on. I try to utilize each player's strengths: Welker is great over the middle, and Watson burns most linebacker matchups.

At the end of my day I played against a level 26 Madden gamer, and he gave away a few good ways of running a nearly unstoppable offense. In the matchup, he ran with the 49ers while I took my Pats.

He utilized Gore and Davis very well. Taking a five-wide receiver shotgun approach, he still had the ability to audible into a solid run formation. Plus, he abused me on a unique shotgun sweep run where a guard actually pulled to the outside to lead block for him –- great play for no-holds barred competition. Another play out of this formation was a screen to the opposite side of the field that was setup faster than most screens; it was hard to react to. This gamer was ranked 200 overall online, and he was attacking all parts of the field with the same formations. If I covered all those plays, he would run deep crosses and eventually find time with Alex Smith to hit one of his receivers; and believe me, a running-across-the-field Frank Gore is very hard to cover due his high speed rating. I ended up losing 31-27.

I’ll check in again next week with the results of the Madden Ballers Tournament where I’ll be repping OS, and of course, my Patriots. Do we have any other tournament players out there going through this same prep process?