3D Avenue has published a review. It's not pretty. I think he read this thread before writing it. :)

hxxp://www.3davenue.com/1539.html

Gridiron on the PC may be a niche market, but over the years the PC platform has been host to some truly great gridiron simulations - the FBPro series, Front Office Football, and of course EA's Madden NFL to name a few. However, in more recent times, very little progress has been made, particularly in the areas of user customization - an aspect most other genres on the PC have long since embraced. This is where Maximum Football comes in - a PC gridiron game which puts user interaction first. Want an 8 man indoor league with your own created teams, user made uniforms and all? Want to mix and match rules between Canadian and American style? Want to design a playbook with custom formations? It's all possible with MaxFB, and then some.

One of the unique things about MaxFB is it was primarily made by one man - David Winter of WinterValley Software. While the game is under the label of Matrix Games (the publisher), it was David who did most of the work, and work he did. Although MaxFB was originally announced in April of 2001 and intended for a 2002 release, it has taken until early 2006 for it to hit gold status. That's a long time for a game to be developed. To think, during this game's development, terrorists knocked down the Twin Towers in New York City, the US and its allies went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, NASA sent robots to Mars, and Conan O'Brien was named the successor to Jay Leno.

When you fire up MaxFB for the first time, you'll notice straight away that the menu's are not designed with convention in mind. First of all, there is no "Options" section to speak off - all you can do from the Main Menu is choose to play a "Quick Game", a "League Game", or exit the game entirely. It is before each game where you define your options - whether they be the rules and boundaries of the game about to be played, or the game's visual detail and resolution. I can understand having the rules option menu come up pre game, but having a general "Options" section for users to toggle their technical settings accessible from the Main Menu would seem to have made more sense - there's a reason just about every PC game has this. A lot of the times graphical detail options are settings you tweak once and forget about, so having them pop up before every game seems like a waste of menu space really.

The "Quick Game" mode is pretty self explanatory, but "League Game" is where the meat of MaxFB is located. The League section is a little confusing to navigate at first, but if you experiment for a little bit you get the hang of it pretty quickly. From here, you can edit leagues, teams, players, as well as obviously run games. Unfortunately though, MaxFB fails to provide much more than this when it comes to league gameplay. There is no money or contract system to speak of, so for the armchair General Managers out there, unfortunately MaxFB is probably not for you. This is actually quite disappointing, as a 3D based gridiron game with a realistic emphasis on the financial dealings of a football team is sorely needed in this genre. On top of this, while there is a player draft, this acts the role of free agency and the rookie draft, which again won't appeal to the team management enthusiasts out there who want realism. At the very least though, MaxFB's Leagues are in a "career" mode, meaning players progress, age and retire.

Naturally, MaxFB does not feature any big league licensing, but it doesn't have to. Thanks to the versatile platform that is the PC, MaxFB can have any league, teams and players you want it to have - providing you're whiling and able to produce the content required to make it happen, or someone else already has and have made it available for download. While Matrix Games won't host content featuring copyrighted material for obvious reasons, such as NFL teams, there are fan based websites that will provide you with such content (links down the bottom of review). This adds a new dimension to MaxFB that no other game, including Madden, can match - if the community interest is there, MaxFB could become a force to be reckoned with when it comes to user addon's. The question is, will there be a user mod community big enough to really drive this aspect of MaxFB? The level of community interaction could literally make or break a game like MaxFB, so it is at least encouraging that Matrix Games are focused on this area by supplying hosting resources and discussion forums for interested users.

When it comes to the actually playing MaxFB in-game, there are three ways to do it - Arcade mode, CPU vs CPU mode and Coach mode. Arcade mode is comparable to Madden's classic mode, which means you have control over the players. However, in MaxFB, this is really not a great way to play given the shortcomings of the game's 3D aspects, which will be discussed in detail later. CPU vs CPU mode is where you watch two teams play out - perhaps useful for online GM leagues, although as I've already outlined there is very little "GM'ing" to be done in MaxFB. Finally, there is Coach mode, which is how most gamers will probably spend their time playing MaxFB. In this mode, you select the play and let the CPU AI execute it for you. Given MaxFB's emphasis on user designed plays, this is by far the most rewarding mode as you know success comes down to how well you plan and coach, not how well you tap buttons.

However, even coach mode can't escape MaxFB's suspect in-game abilities. First of all, the game is simply buggy. It is hard to complete a game without coming across a few bugs, some of which can be quite devastating in effect. For example, on one occasion, I suffered a delay of game penalty on 1st and 10, but rather than move me back 5 yards, the game gave possession of the ball to my opponents on my 30 yard line, which quickly led to a score. I'd like to say stuff like this is rare in MaxFB, but it isn't. Secondly, since coach mode relies on the CPU to execute the plays, AI is very important, but at times MaxFB fails to deliver here too. Defensive coverage is often a problem, as is blocking. Luckily, both of these issues outlined - bugs and AI - could be addressed in future patches, but whether or not they are effectively of if at all is another story.

The best part about MaxFB is quite easily the "Play Development System" - a fancy name for a play and playbook editor. In this editor, you can pretty much do anything. A lot of game developers out there release utilities for their games and say "this is the same utility we used when making the game's content", and then a few sessions later you find out it can't do something which is in the game. You won't find this with MaxFB's "PDS". When making a formation, you have complete control of which positions go where, and when I say complete, I mean complete - players can line up anywhere as long as they're not over the LOS, which means you can basically make any formation you can think of. When making a play for your formation, or an in built formation, you can define receiver routes down to the pixel, and you can also add events to positions such as "block and release", "wait", "random snap count" and "lead block" to name a few. As I said, this is quite easily the best part of MaxFB. The only draw back is the utility is external to the game, but it can be easily accessed from the game's initial menu screen. While the less than enthused MaxFB gamer might not care for making his or her own plays, if you are prepared, it could literally be the most important part of success on the field given the control you have.

Visually, MaxFB is about as low end as you'll find a 3D game on the PC these days. While the stadiums don't look too bad and the player models are semi decent when standing still, it is the animations that really let MaxFB down. We can understand that such a small time project might not have access to stuff like motion capturing, but even if you put aside the less than life like movement of the players, you'll still find disjointed animations that, at times, can be hard to even see properly given their uneven execution speeds - for instance, most tackle animations are so damn quick and featureless you can't even tell what happened. It sounds like players collided, and two guys are on the turf flat on their backs, but that's about as convincing as it gets. At other times, you'll see the backs of defensive linemen facing the QB and still being blocked, defenders making tackles through blockers, and tacklers disappearing off the screen after making a hit just to name a few other animation related quirks. While the game isn't intended to be on par with Madden in terms of its 3D engine (which itself is getting quite dated these days), that doesn't excuse some of the obvious shortcomings in MaxFB's 3D aspects. If you had to take one positive from MaxFB's visuals, it is that the low range quality means you won't need a beast of a PC to run this game smoothly, which might be more important to some fans of this genre than visual quality.

Maximum Football is a very unique game - it's not often gridiron games outside of EASports are released these days, not to mention gridiron games made primarily by one person. While it is an admirable effort given the circumstances of development, it won't be for everyone. Sure, it features an arcade mode like that of normal gameplay in Madden, but it is the coach mode and CPU vs CPU mode which will offer the best gameplay in Max Football, and that filters the user base considerably. For PC gamers out there looking for a coach mode gridiron game that will give them control over most facets of the game and aren't expecting much when it comes to flashy visuals and lifelike animations, Maximum Football is probably a good title to check out. However, for gamers who like the thrills of EA's "hit stick", Madden PC is probably more what you're after, or for gamers who enjoy the GM and roster management aspects of American football, Front Office Football 2004 is probably more what you're after, and you will find both cheaper than MaxFB's retail price of US$ 49.99 (US$39.99 as a digital download) too. Even for the coach mode and customization nuts that MaxFB is aimed at, that's a pretty steep price for a game that is probably 2 or 3 patches and 6 months worth of user created downloads away from what I'd consider a fully featured product.

Yeah, I posted that review about 4 pages ago, but I didn't point out the stuff that you did. Check out the other review as well.

can this game be pre-ordered?

David shows that as well as being able to tackle the complexity of football, has an in depth knowledge of possibly the next sport to receive the Maximum treatment


Presumably by the Canadian explorers who discovered Europe.

I'm going to sign up to test that one after it's released!

Wow! How did I miss that one? Which thread is that in?

I bet this review pissed QS off...

I think I've seen one person viewing this thread now for 19 consecutive days....

I wonder what page he's on????

It's in the one where they're all pleading for the next game, title is VBData or something.

Even funnier is the discussion about lost players. For some reason, some of the people there are the densest posters I've seen in a long while. About 10 posts of confusion between the words "pro" and "all-pro."

Now that some of them have finished dressing their dolls and started playing, it looks like some interesting holes in the sim engine. Check out the threads titled draft and sim first season.

Obviously that new set of testers have some work on their hands.

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1122577

Daivd has a future career in politics if he can spin like that.

What is so disappointing is that most people are voting for a faster sim engine and not the financial system or H2H play. I don't understand that at all since I thought many of them wanted to create leagues.

I'm surprised they're not writing in for more uniform options.

I think they are all trying to master the more subtle features of photoshop. :)

Writing a new 3D Engine is a possible option? :eek:

That sounds like more than a tweak or a small new option...

Based on his work production in the past, I'm guessing he's being a tad optomistic here.

In fact...


and


are linked together. You guys still don't get it. They want better, prettier uniforms and for them to be rendered properly, the game sorely needs a faster sim engine to keep up with pretty colors...

FM

It's legalese. Another way to use brisk would be to describe something that is cold and gets your attention, like a "brisk breeze".

or Iced Tea

That is true. If you read the comments, made by the people who are voting for the sim option, they are saying they want more realistic stats to the fast sim. That's interesting considering they kept arguing that the stats were just fine when they were pointed out. So you are right Mustang, they are basically fixing something that is still broken. Well, actually, they may fix it if it is voted on.

Hmm ... I wonder ... does the color of the uniform affect the engine?

You know, this might not be as crazy as it would initially seem. Frame rate impacts play. One of the results of slower frame rates seems to be lower pass completion rates.

If the complexity of the uniform design impacts frame rate--which I'm guessing it would--then you could maximize your frame rate by having your team wear simple uniforms and reduce the frame rate by having complex uniforms.

The strategy here would be to have multicolored, complex uniforms if you are a run-oriented team that wanted to slow the other team's passing down, and very simple uniforms if you are a passing team that wanted the highest possible completion rates in your passing game.

Brilliant!

I wonder if you could have very simple basic uniforms for your offense and then highly detailed complex uniforms for your defense? I'm starting to see where strategy could come into play with this game!

Well, if it's like any other game, make the backside of the jerseys a solid color, since you typically get the "behind the offense" view. And then make the front side of the jersey's into a grafitti paradise, since that's the view you usually see when you play defense.

wow ... this thread is to the rest of fofc what Joe Montana is to other qbs. Even when he was way past his prime, bearing not a resemblance to the brilliant qb he was in his peak, he was still better than 90% of the threads on the first page.

What I find very interesting is that a new interface design would take just as much time to do as a new 3D engine that supports rag-doll physics for various animations.

(I'll refrain from pointing out his obvious misuse of the term "3D Engine" with jokes, and just say that I'm sure he means the general game engine, not specifically the 3D Engine since physics and animations do not technically belong there. At least, I hope he meant that.)

Outstanding work! :) With thinking like that, you're got to be considered the odds-on favorite in the upcoming FOFC Online Maximum Football League.

Another angle on this strategy would be to have a run-oriented offense that only plays night games in the rain in a dome. These three factors would make a huge hit on the frame rate. The "rain in the dome" part might be a bit tricky, but with Maximum Football's customizability, I wouldn't rule it out.

Combine this strategy with your frame-rate conducive uniforms, and your team would be nearly unstoppable.

last post in the greatest FOFC thread eva!

The sad thing is, this thread has seen as much or more activity as of late than the official Matrix forum.

no, i am the threadkiller

Sure you are.

This, and the responding comments, are all "FOFC Time Vault" stuff. Hilarious.

Wow, I totally forgot about this game.

No one's talking about MF on the Matrix Forums? Man, if I was Daivd, I'd really be depressed.

Why be depressed when he is probably taggin the old lady in a pile of money he made from the ga........

err

Uhhhh......is this a joke? Or is this person being serious?


http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1131285

If you read through the rest of the thread, he says he ended up downloading two games. Is this a joke or is this possibly true?

LOL!

I'm guessing he'd downloaded FOF previously and some data from its install were still in his windows cache directory - this can cause the wrong setup file to trigger sometimes when installers are run.

This has been something I've seen people mention with FM before and I'd presume its the case here ...

Someone needs to tell this guy he did download the right game. There is nothing right about Maximum Football.

I will PayPal $5 to the person who posts "At least you downloaded a game that actually works." in that thread.

It has arrived:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Maximum-Football...QQcmdZViewItem

Hmm, the seller location is about a mile from my house. Scary.

Time to move.

Only 30 bucks to "buy it now"? An outright steal.

I know, Daivd and Freinds should be ashamed.

Daivd is selling his personal copy?

Oh man, I had avoided this thread a slong as possible....but after reading some pages...What was I Missing? I cant believe i denied myself the pleasure of this thread!

May god have mercy on your soul.

Oak Park, represent! Heh, lurker and I were just talking about how much we miss Detroit..

Has this thread officially outlived Maximum Football? I don't think there are any hopefuls left over there.

And knowing how Diavd is, he probably thinking his game is at a good point now because no one is posting anymore over there.

There is some activity in the "Graphics Related" forum over there. They are making helmets and uniforms and such.

Other than that, crickets.

The moment of truth has arrived for them. It's one thing to back the game when you've got sales and you're looking at potential sales, but I'm curious to see how the next patch turns out. I would bet it's either going to be substantially late or lacking promised features. Perhaps both. Summer's coming up, the weather is going to get nice, I doubt David is going to want to stay inside and write code for a game with non-existent sales.

I'll trade you for Chicago.

New canadian football season in a few weeks. Since everyone loves that game, and the fact that it is 1000000000 times superior to its inferior US cousin, I expect a rash of new purchases for the game.

Has anyone made a new roster set with Onterrio~! Smith and Ricky Williams yet!

Nah, we don't miss it THAT much.

I'll take a bet that this thread alone has more posts than the entire forum for Maximum Football.

And I can guaran-damn-tee you this thread has more limericks and haikus than their entire forum has.

:D

This is another post about Maximum Football.

And screenshots. Don't forget screenshots.

Good thing to know this thread won't need necromancers thanks to Daivid's plans for a 3rd and 4th beta patch.

Ant, you have made more posts in this thread than the entire Matrix MF forum.

Serious question now! I don't know anything about Canadian rules football, but is it possible to score just 1 point for the entire game?

Plus check out the stats to the links that were provided as well. This is apparently an league someone started and this is the output. Wow!

If you kick a field goal, miss it short, and the other team can't return it out of the end zone, you get a point. This is called a "rouge". Also, in the American game, isn't it possible (if exceedingly rare) to block an extra point attempt and return it for a 1-point score?

Check out week 2!

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1140317

"Week 2 is done.Edmonton originally won but lost because the penalty kick program took Montreals score above Edmontons.Montreal sent in a roster update Edmonton did not."

Say what?

I believe that is only in college football.

It's a rouge sighting!

I have 55 posts in this thread.

Dola quad Fecta, looking at it now, that last post would have been #56, and this one is #57

Yep, although in college, if the defense gets a turnover on an extra point or two-point conversion attempt, and they take it to the house, they get two points. The only time I saw a single point get awarded for something like this was a couple of years ago in the Texas-Texas A&M game. The Aggies blocked the extra point, and recovered it in the end zone. They then tried to return the block, and made it out of the end zone, where they fumbled the ball back into the end zone. The Aggies recovered the kick, but Texas tackled them in the end zone. Texas was awarded a 1 point safety. That was the only time I'd ever seen that call from the refs.

At one point I did a rough count and we had more posts than their general forum, but that was a while back.

Ah....okay, I was curious about that.

Ugh.....I am just going to assume this is a Canadian rules thing that I just don't understand. That statement makes no sense to me.

While this is mostly right, this won't happen if the kick is short. The goalposts in the CFL are on the goal line, so if it's short, it doesn't go into the end zone. Remember that the end zones are 20 yards deep, though, so a kick can miss wide and still not go out of the end zone. That's usually when the rouge comes into play on a field goal attempt.

I don't know for sure, but I would guess that most rouges happen on punts that don't get returned, though.

I think it's the online league that is using some kind of "penalty kick rule" in case at least one team doesn't send in a roster file. The CFL has some wacky rules, but nothing like that!

Can't you get a rouge off of a drop kick too?

Only if you can your framerate up to 27 fps.

Those stats are hilarious…

Maximum Football Online League News
We now take you to MAXIMUM FOOTBALL Sports News, covering the flagship Online League of this cutting edge simulation…

Announcer
Well, after two weeks of play, we’ve had quite a few thrilling games and some amazing achievements, that’s for sure. Let’s take a look at some of the league’s standout statistics.

Apparently Leipzig has a bit of work to do on their passing game. In 38 attempts so far, quarterback Bolden as thrown 40 interceptions.

Analyst
Yes, but let’s now be so quick to criticize him. First it’s not easy to throw more than one interception on the same play, and Bolden has managed to do that on more than one occasion. Second, he has completed 15 of his passes, so that means that 55 of his 38 pass attempts have been caught by somebody. Third, you can’t just blame the quarterback in a situation like this; you’ve also got to look at the offensive line. They’ve had some minor problems protecting him. If you look at the stats, he’s been sacked 90 times in their two games. That's what I call a real beating! Lastly, it may have just been some outstanding play by Sasketchupwan's Russell, as he has picked off 43 passes in two games, and may just be a demi-god in human form.

Announcer
Yes, but I'm sure their passing woes can be fixed with a bit of uniform design. Rumor has it that Leipzig's coach has hired Calvin Klein to a two-year, $7.1-million dollar contract as a team fashion designer; Leipzig’s passing game will be back in form once they get their colors in line.

But's let's move on and take a look at kick return specialist Lockett from Calgary, who has been busy in the first two weeks of games. Lockett has amassed nearly 200 yards in kick off returns over the first two weeks.

Analyst
While this may seem productive, I want to point out that it took Lockett 161 returns to get this yardage. The highlight of Lockett’s season came when he broke off a personal-best 6-yard return. Commented Lockett on his long return, "I caught the ball, took two steps forward, and fell down cuz' some big guy was running at me! Booya! Most of the time I catch the ball and try to remember what I’m supposed to do, but that time, I remembered: run forward! That’s what coach keeps telling me to do.”

Announcer
But by far the most amazing performance so far has been the Toronto Argonauts, who have burst out of the gate to a 2-0 start. They have outscored their opponents 118-9, and this is enough to give them a league-high winning percentage of 1311.11%. Way to go Argonauts!

Analyst
Wait a moment, there! Don’t forget about penalty goals! Yes, with Maximum Football you can customize the game, and in our flagship league, tie games are decided by soccer midgets that run onto the field and kick watermelons at llamas! The penalty kicks made the difference with Edmonton and Montreal, as Edmonton lost then won because Montreal’s midget hit the llama between the eyes!

What excitement!

Announcer
Yes, that’s MAXIMUM FOOTBALL for you! Well, our time is up. We’ll be back next week for a closer look at the league’s other stat categories. Thanks for tuning in! See you next week*!

*In Maximum Football time units. One week equals 38 days. So two weeks equals, ummmm, 137.37% days.

That sounds like a ZFL game right there. :)

That was hilarious. :D

GB, that was incredible. Whose stats were those?

To answer my own question - they belong to the VCFL and you can read more about their league at blindsideblitz.com.

Thanks. T'was fun to write.

The stats are from the link in Antmeister's post up above. He got them from what is apparently the first online league using Maximum Football?

Edit: Ah, beat me to it.

So, there's one semi-understandable mistake ... his calculation of Pct is not winning percentage, but (inexplicably):

Pct = PF / PA


...but the rst of it I can't make head or tails of. Good stuff, though. Very customized.

Wow. There's just so much more material there to work with. I just scratched the surface...

Leipzig's quarterback, with his 90 sacks and 40 interceptions, also leads the league in rushing with 350 yards on 50 attempts. ...There have been no fumbles and no sacks (as far as I can tell from the rushing leaders and tackles leaders) in the league, yet Bolden has been sacked 90 times. ...Leipzig's Benetka leads the league with 90 tackles. Best I can figure is that this means he is making virtually every tackle for his team on defense. Or maybe he is the one sacking his own quarterback?

Yes, very customized.

That was awesome, GB. I'm in tears.

I didn't play football in high school, but when I was a junior, our school played the District Championship game in a snow/rain/ice storm.

We lost 1-0.

So, if I (or just some guy) wanted to go to their forum and just post something like "Hey, the game sounds interesting, but I'm worried about stats reliability" or somesuch... is there anywhere you're allowed to just discuss the game? (It seems not)

I guess that's off-limits... considering open game discussion tends to lead toward things that they don't really allow there (like cracking wise).

Okay, I just about cried reading this. That is awsome!!! :D

Outstanding stuff, GB! :D

That was gold, GB!

Could this be the start of a new Golden Age for this thread?

It might...as someone won the ebay auction for $5.

Ouch, shipping the thing is $1 dollar less than the winning bid. Talk about adding on the insult.

That's fantastic.

The thread that keeps going... and going... and going.. and going... :)

GB, you have so much crap to work with if you want to continue you Maximum Football Highlight show. Here are more things that happened in just two games:

In fact, none of the top tacklers had any sacks and 90 tackles is just so wrong. Hmmm.

I suppose you can have 20 receptions for 520 yards in just two games.

Uhhhhhh.....what........is it just me? This is just 2 games.

Sure, you had a quarterback with more interceptions than completions, but this guy is awesome. Out of 33 completions, 20 were touchdowns and 10 were interceptions.


43 inteceptions? This is my dream cornerback or safety or linebackbacker. Hey! What position does this guy play? And why doesn't anyone have any return yards.

couldn't David make money by selling his unsold inventory on ebay now? would he then realize just how much the market values his game? i mean, if the guy had to decide between having a room full of unsold merchandise or selling them at a deep discount it kinda seems like a no-brainer.

Unless I missed something somewhere (which is quite possible), I wouldn't think Daivd controls the inventory, Matrix would. And I don't get the impression that they would admit their mistake by fire-selling the game on eBay.

But, this is Daivd we're talking about ... maybe he'll make a fortune investing in the games at full price from Matrix & then re-selling the game on eBay himself.

Thanks for the compliments, guys! Was fun to do. :)


Yeah, there's a good month's worth of stuff and we're only up to week Two! Feel free to join the fun.

And now, it's time for...

In the Maximum Football Locker Room, with ESPN's Bibi Gunn

Bibi: This is Bibi Gunn, reporting live from the locker room with Joe Russell, all-pro safety from the Sasketchupwan Roughriders. After two games, Russell leads the league with 43 interceptions, a pace that would give him more than 300 interceptions on the year. Russ, tell us, what’s the secret of your success?

Russell: Well, first of all, I’d like to thank our uniform designer for making me this awesome outfit. (holds up jersey) This is prolly the biggest reason I rule. See all the colors? That hypnotizes the opposing quarterback. Slows him down, like in that movie with that Neo dude. (makes pistol shooting gesture). I call it my Matrix effect.

Bibi: Yes, but that can’t be the only reason, Russ. Surely, there’s something else.

Russell: (thinking) Well, when the opposing quarterback goes back to throw and starts looking downfield, I wave my arms and yell, “Over here! Throw it to me!” (laughs) Bingo! Another interception! Gets them every time.

Bibi: But don’t the offenses adapt to you? I mean, after a couple dozen interceptions, you’d think the opposition would try different things?

Russell: Oh, yeah, they’re crafty as hell, always switching the count of the play and stuff. So I gotta always mix up how I play, you know? I’m always changing what I yell at the quarterback. Sometimes I say “I’m open. Hit me!” That’s a good one, Bibi. A quarterback really has to be on top of his game to not get fooled by that one. Other times, I’ll yell, “Loser, bet you can’t throw it this far!” Hah, you should see their faces after I pick one off with that clutch line. (laughs) I rule.

Bibi: With an average of five interceptions a quarter, no one doubts your value to your team, but I’m sure you're aware of your detractors and what they say about your game, Russ, and you know I've got to ask you about it.

Russell: Oh. (looks down) The interception return yardage?

Bibi: Exactly. I mean, in 43 interceptions, you’ve yet to return one for a single yard. The replays show the truth: after every single interception, you topple over like a dead camel. Your total return yardage is zero, Russ. What do you have to say to your critics?

Russell: Football’s a complicated game, Bibi. Anyone knows that. It ain’t just a bunch of spread sheets and numbers. Heck, I did spread sheets and numbers years ago, and anyone can do that. Football requires quick thinking, Bibi. You got legs and arms, and it ain’t easy switching between the two, you know? Catching takes toootal concentwation with my arms, and I’m working hard at switching to using my legs. On top of that, I gotta remember to run, which is a complex activity involving lots of pixels, and depends on things like frame rates and such. No, not easy at all. Plus I ain’t the only one with that problem, Bibi. No one else in the league has any return yardage either.

Bibi: (looking at camera) Well, there you have it. Russell answers his critics. (looks back at Russell). Russ, there’s one more thing I wanted to ask you. On the stats sheet for interceptions, it mentions “Trys”. You got a zero in that, as did everyone else in the league. What the heck is a “try”?

Russell: (Looks perplexed.) Um, not sure there, Bibi. Maybe something about putting out a good effort? Or maybe we're actually playing rugby? But Bibi, I’m not concerned with that stuff. It’s spreadsheet stuff, and spreadsheets are kid's stuff.

Bibi: (looking at camera) Signing off from Sasketchupwan, I'm Bibi Gunn. Bang bang. (winks)

That's great.

I heard Joe Russell once intercepted a Dean Houston pass for negative 12 yards and a safety.

Joe Russell couldn't catch AIDS even if his mother passed it to him.

See, now you got Ole Dean talking street, and I just hate talking street.