Forget the National Guard, the Dallas Cowboys offense has enough firepower to outmatch almost any force out there.

It was an impressive showing by the Cowboys offense last Saturday afternoon over at the GameBreakers store, which was hosting the South Florida Madden Ballers tournament. Around 20 local Floridians, some as far as Tampa, came down to pick up the sticks, hoping to pick up six on the Xbox 360. The Atlanta Madden Challenge winner was also present, so I knew this tournament was for real.

With some of the latest music by Young Jeezy and Kanye West playing, the atmosphere was friendly during the height of the tournament. The rules and structure of the tourney were to divide the players into round-robin groups of three. Each winner of the round-robin advanced.

After practicing over the past few weeks, I was willing to try my luck against some of the guys who understand John Madden’s computerized football mind more than the developers of the game; players who utilize every button mapped to the controller and every feature you could think of to their full and utmost advantage.

Similarly to how the team steals the spotlight on ESPN and NFL Live, Big D would run the show at this tourney as almost every competitor used the Cowboys’ phenomenal offense -- featuring new wideout Roy Williams.

Game One

I chose my Patriots to take on the Big D in Texas Stadium. Playing on All-Madden, the first game was fairly low scoring in the first half: I netted 20 rushing yards and -27 passing yards in the first half. I was getting sacked on drop backs in the shotgun, battling exotic zones that I didn’t want to test too much on my side of the field. By the time I made the correct read, the window was shut and the defenders had the man covered. The score was 10-0 Dallas with the kickoff coming to me in the third quarter.

Obviously, it was Randy Moss time. I had to do it guys; I mean I had to open it up to try and move the ball. So, I broke out the "Snugs Mesh" play: Moss went on a streak, Welker on an out route, and Gaffney on a deep corner route on the right side of my offensive line. I shredded the zone with the overloading wideouts and hit Moss deep down the middle of the field for a touchdown. Now I had some solid offense and I was flowing like Lloyd Banks on his latest mix tape, Return of the PLK (great mix tape, I recommend it for hip-hop fans).

After a heavy dose of Jones and Barber, it was the fourth quarter before I got the rock back -- and I was down 17-7. I ended up playing some great defense in this matchup, with a pick and a fumble recovered via a user-strip, but my opponent's defense really held me down in the first half and he was able to score the win. A 17-14 loss in Big D to the Cowboys.

Game Two

Game two would be a matchup against a new opponent, but the same teams were used. I was ready this time. I was prepared to shut down the run game that had controlled the clock in my first-round loss. Well, that was before I got hit by a hurricane of an offense. I’m talking about the thunder and lightning full-house offense of Jones and Barber, featuring TO. These guys formed the perfect storm of speed and power. I didn’t know which player was getting the ball on any given play, which made it almost impossible to stop the Cowboys. Inside handoffs to Barber, stretch runs to Jones, and play-action bombs to TO, Witten and Bennett kept putting pressure on me to keep scoring. After tearing up his zone in the first half with Moss and Welker over the middle of the field, my turnovers ended my tournament run. A loss 35-14.

When you take the regular I-Form Heavy set and audible to a full-house backfield featuring TO, the matchups it creates are just too tough to cover. My Pats couldn’t handle it. On top of that, Felix Jones was Jesus without the sandals out there on the field. He is highly overrated. Jones was gashing my defense, falling forward on every run, and breaking at least one to two tackles every time he touched the rock. Keep in mind he was doing this running up the gut –- that shouldn’t happen.

Essentially, hybrid Cover 4-type zones out of the 4-6 formation were used along with zone blitzes to take me off my game. Another normal trend was a small pass rush, typically two down lineman in passing situations. Of course, sometimes my opponents rushed none in that situation, but that’s when you hit them with a screen pass to the running back or wideout.

The zones were effectively taking away my underneath routes, which I love to throw, so that is why I struggled to start the day. I forced the ball deep when there was nothing underneath and that resulted in three and outs.

This will be my last tournament of Madden for a while, but it was fun while it lasted. These kids got some incomprehensible stick skills, which I counter-punched at times, but not enough to pull out the wins. At the very least, all the guys were respectful and we all had fun at the same time. I know that I still have some talent left, but I’m not going out at the height of my game, that’s for sure.