Author: jcalvert

The Dawgs easily took care of the Broncos from Boise State 48-13, and DJ Shockley looked damn impressive in the process. The Dawgs came out running, which is what I was hoping they would do – DJ hands off to the left; DJ hands off to the right; DJ up the middle. It worked very well, but little did I know that Shockley would pass for 5 TDs! His final numbers were 16-24-5, good for 290 yards in the air, but DJ was equally impressive on the ground gaining 85 yards on 5 carries (17 yards/rush) including a TD. Wow! What a way for the Shockley era to begin.

Georgia could be in for an interesting ride this year � tons of talent is gone from both sides of the ball, but under Richt Georgia has recruited very well. With three stud running backs in the fold – Brown, Ware, and Lumpkin – I think Georgia should be in good shape. If Lumpkin is fully recovered, expect him to beat out Brown and Ware for the top HB spot.

The real question is going to be if DJ Shockley can be a productive QB. If he is, then Georgia may have a good year, maybe even a very good year. If DJ struggles early, then the Dawgs are going to be in for a long year.

Boise State is certainly a scary early test, but I see no reason why Georgia should not win with several points in hand. Everyone is making this game out to be the favorite pick for an upset, but I just do not see it happening. The game could be tight early, or even high scoring, but in the end I think Georgia will walk away with a win. Call it 34-17 for the opening salvo in the Shockley era.

Who? Jay Cutler, the famously unknown QB at Vanderbilt. Contradiction? Sure, but most people do not have a clue about Cutler, much less his NFL potential. Apparently all the NFL scouts love Cutler – great size, wonderful arm, perfect prototype QB. I am not sure how many preseason publications I read this year, but almost everyone in the “know” thinks the Vandy QB is the next big thing.

Most of us SEC fans think “WTF?” Surely Vanderbilt does not have the best QB in the SEC, but in Vanderbilt’s 24-20 victory over Wake Forest last Thursday night, Cutler put up impressive numbers: 25-36-1, good for 276 yards. Cutler also ran the ball 10 times for 89 yards.

Going into this season I never expected Cutler to be the best QB in the SEC, but Cutler looks like he is going to prove the pundits wrong. Should be an interesting season.

As I continue to play Madden, I continue to appreciate it for what it is – a solid game of football. At this point I am not worried about what it is not � a perfect simulation of football. I only have a few disappointments thus far. First, the franchise mode has not been overhauled. Second, decent/consistent punt returns are darn near impossible. Third, my fingers are no longer nimble enough to make sure of all the fun stuff in the game such as the new passing cone.

Let us talk about the franchise mode for a minute. I have a feeling that it is built well enough for the majority of the fans that purchase Madden year in and year out, but simulation fans will quickly grow depressed with some of the limitations and the questionable (dare I say poor) AI logic.

I did a simulation last night and the Vikings beat the Colts 18-17 in the Super Bowl. Come on! That would never happen in real life …

Seriously, Bill Belichick retired after the 1995 season. No way, not going to happen. The Falcons let Alge go. That’s crazy talk! The Giants used a Top 10 draft pick on another stud QB. That is just the top of the list; I have more, but I am not going to dwell on the other items right now.

The AI still has no concept of drafting for need, and if they draft for value (i.e. the Giants example) they do not trade a QB such as Eli or the newly drafted wunderkind to help fill a hole on the team. I am not going to write that this sort of AI is easy to implement, but you would think EA would have made some improvements by now. Then again, maybe they figure that only a few geeks with blogs will notice the problems, much less care to complain. Anyway, it is the same old same old with the drafting AI, and that is a rather bitter pill to swallow.

Another issue with the off-season franchise stuff is the order you perform the various tasks:

1. Retired Players
2. Restricted Free agents
3. Re-sign Players
4. Rookie Scouting
5. NFL Draft
6. Sign Draft Picks
7. Free Agent Signing
8. Re-order Depth Charts
9. Start New Season

Maybe it is this way in real life, but I hate having to decide which restricted free agents and players I want to sign prior to the draft. I would be much nicer to at least be able to scout the draft prior to having to decide to re-up a WR when the draft is full of WRs.

The franchise mode is fun, but most of us (sim fans we be) will have to implement house rules to keep from exploiting the CPU (via the draft or trades). The CPU AI logic for drafting is so weak, that I suspect that many sim-heads are going to run all 32 teams and manually draft to keep things nice and tidy. I do not really want to do this, but after watching several stupid drafts, I am pretty sure that the alternative will get disapointing after a few seasons. That is enough talk about Madden’s franchise mode for now.

What about punt returns? Still trying to figure this one out. Last night I watched (Falcons/Jaguars) many punts go unreturned, but Madden’s implementation of punt returns may be downright poor. I have read enough posts that say punt returns are broken (and that “there is nothing you can do”). I am not sure if most of these posts are coming from Xbox or PS2 owners; sometimes there is a difference between systems when it comes to this sort of thing, so hopefully the PS2 version can be “fixed.” I guess I am going to have to break down and tweak sliders and read more message boards to see if someone has come up with a decent solution. I am not expecting miracles, but I do expect Rossum to average around 10 yards per return.

My final issue for this post is really more of a criticism of me as opposed to the game. New features such as the passing cone are neat – sure it looks like a giant flashlight as so many others have described it, but I think it does a great job of simulating a QB going through his progression of reads. My problem is that my dexterity (or lack there of) more often than not lets me down. Maybe practice makes perfect, but I am just not adapt at pressing buttons (especially combinations of buttons) very quickly.

Overall I like Madden, but as of right now, I think I like NCAA Football better. It may not be the best “pure” football game, but it plays well enough to be fun, and I think the NCAA AI recruits better than the Madden AI drafts.

Three quick points. First, it does not matter if Vick learns to stay in the pocket, rolls out, becomes a West Coast Master, etc. If the o-line does not learn to block Vick is going to have his freaking head knocked off. Second, for the second week in a row Atlanta’s first string offensive has looked pretty good. Vick is making good decisions, and Dunn has looked extremely impressive. Third, the Falcons’ secondary is too damn small. Hall may turn out to be impressive, but the rest of the guys are just not going to cut it if ATL is to make tracks this year.

Madden punt watch is on: the punting game appears to be fairly broken (I know, this after my last post) so I figured I would pay special attention to the punts tonight to see what happens. First punt (Falcons to Jaguars) � the returner is drilled; this looks exactly like Madden. Second punt goes in the end zone. Third punt, plenty of running room for Rossum, but a block in the back cancels the play out. End of the first quarter, so maybe more to come.

It had to happen sooner or later; I decided to check out some of the old hang-outs (and some new places) to see what sort of buzz on the street was surrounding the latest, greatest Madden release. Big mistake.

For starters, I learned of some glitch that lets you figure out if your opponent (CPU or human) is going to run or pass. Granted, it is only for certain formations, but apparently this is a game killer for lots and lots of people. Interesting enough, it seems to be more of a game killer for fans of NFL2K5. Go figure; strange happenings that one.

SPOILER WARNING IF YOU CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING LINK: This glitch (for a lack of a better word MaddenMania.com* does not want to describe it as a bug) was apparently in previous versions of Madden including 2004 and 2005, so says the rumors. It is just crazy out there; apparently MaddenMania was trying to suppress any description of the “glitch” in their forums for fear of something. What? No idea. Like I said strange happenings abound.

The crazy thing with this bug is that some gamers are chalking it up as part of the “EA exclusive NFL license means bad games” theory. Why on Earth would EA want to screw the general gaming public by purposely giving us games full of bugs? Some of the message boards just leave me speechless.

Or how about how EA’s QA department sucks – if this problem has been in 2 prior versions of Madden, it was obviously not that easy of an issue to spot. The whole thing leaves me very perplexed – I guarantee you that 99% of Madden owners did not know about this issue until someone posted on a board, and of course it spread like wildfire. Where there is dung, there are flies.

Another head turner is the inordinate number of posts clamoring about the lack of football choices. “I have to buy Madden 2006 because it is the only choice for NFL football this year.” WTF is that about? Did someone force all these gamers to stop playing NFL2K5 (or Madden 2005 or any other previous version of a NFL game for that matter)?

The casual gamer in me thinks that some rabid fans need to get a life, but the football fan in me understands the importance of getting things right. The franchise mode is nice and all, but the AI cannot draft for crap – this is a recurring problem and it has to be pointed out to EA. With that said, at this point in my gaming life it is much better for me to focus on having fun with my games, not finding every single flaw.

I don’t know. Some days I want to bitch and moan and complain about all the problems in Madden (and other games), but these days it just seems so silly, petty, and otherwise unimportant. I suppose I will always have my moments, but I could do without reading about glitches/bugs/flaws that I would never find without the help of message boards.

I am not sure what is worse – the fact that I wasted part of my life reading through the waves of crap, or the fact that I actually posted to MaddenMania. Ouch. Pretty damning.

* [You may have to be a MaddenMania.com registered member to read the post; I am not going to quote the spoilers here.]

I came across an interesting article for beer drinkers/lovers. Last month The Boston Globe ran an article about the great beer debate – bottles vs. cans. Apparently Jim Koch (of Sam Adams fame) said that canned beer more or less sucked.

I have always liked bottled beer, but I have to admit that I am not sure that I could tell the difference between my favorite brands in a taste test. I guess I need to learn to save money and go with cans, which is precisely what I did tonight when I picked up a 12-pack of Budweiser Select – the can 12-pack was several dollars cheaper than the 12-pack of bottles. I have been curious about Select, but to be honest it is nothing to write home about. Bud Select is more or less beer flavored water; sort of like Natural Light with a little more beer flavor.

I have read that next generation games may cost $10 more on average (i.e. $59.99), but I really did not expect it to happen. Too bad, but it looks like it is coming if gamestop.com is any indication. I just too a look at their PS3 and Xbox 360 game listing, and there was sticker shock staring me in the eyes.

Life is sometimes funny. I will go for long stretches of time, not worrying about the “little things” in a game that used to bother me. Now that I am a borderline mass-market gamer, I just want to have fun with my gaming experiences. Then other times (such as last night) I revert back to my previous life of a jaded sports gaming bastard.

I think I have complained enough about QB sacks for the last 3-4 years that no one much cares about me complaining yet again – but that is what I do best! So here goes … I am sick and tired of getting my ass handed to me in the form of a sack when my QA is tackled (or hit) by a CPU defender mid-throw. It is so damn frustrating to watch my CPU tuck the ball back in and take a sack even if he has gone through three-fourths of his throwing motion. I could live with this (maybe) if the game was fair about it and also sacked the CPU QBs, but no, that would be too damn easy.

Last night this happened several times (North Texas vs. Florida Atlantic); one time the impact rated QA for Florida Atlantic completed some sort of crazy 180-degree behind the back, underarm pass. No kidding, I was in the process of sacking the CPU’s impact QB, who’s back happened to be facing away from the line of scrimmage; when all of a sudden, the QB flipped the ball 10-yards forward to a WR. Wow! That sort of stuff does not make my day. In fact, when I have not had any gaming time for about a week, it really sort of spoils the experience. I thought I had moved passed this already, but old habits die hard.

Another annoyance is that North Texas’s schedule is messed up. I finished up my schedule against Florida Atlantic on the road, but “in real life” North Texas’s last game of the year is in Denton hosting Arkansas State. I am not sure when it happened (maybe the schedule changed after the game was released), but the October 1 game with Troy was moved to Tuesday night – October 4 – on ESPN2, while the Arkansas state was moved to the end of the year Minor squabble, and to be fair, maybe not the fault of EA Sports. I was already jawed up, but I am happy to get to watch the Mean Green on TV!

At the end of my first season I was ranked 32nd in the country; a health 10-1 record, with the only blemish being a beating at the hands of LSU. My next game is the New Orleans bowl vs. the Zips from Akron (6-5). I am now ranked #20 in the country. I guess this mimics real life; sit back and do nothing for several weeks and watch your rankings climb! The whole Top 25 pole system in NCAA 2006 needs to be improved for next year.

I do still like the game, but sometimes the little things get me down. Hopefully I will have time to play and get over it tonight.

I should have seen this coming. No backups in a year or so, and now thanks to a nasty virus it is all gone. “It” of course is everything that I should have been backing up weekly/monthly – tax records, my wife’s legal documents, license keys to a few favorite software packages and games, and a crap load of email.

The bad thing is that I used to do backups fairly regularly, but I got lazy. I typically just backup data files from my C drive to my D drive, which under normal circumstances worked fine. But not this time; I paid dearly this weekend. The nasty virus attack that got by Norton cleaned my boot record and utterly destroyed my C and D drive partitions. Yes, these two drives are on the same physical HDD – I know, not very smart.

I think I slept a couple of hours this morning after trying, and trying, and trying some more to recover the data. The loss of the email is brutal � I have years of documents, contacts, and just all around important stuff. I especially feel bad for my wife because she just lost so much of her legal work.

So I guess I am just feeling a little sorry for myself, but I figured I would do the public service thing by reminding everyone of the importance of regular backups!

I think I am going to have to break down and buy a new PC, but I keep looking at the iMac solution. I think this would work for most of the things my family needs – but I would hate to give up Windows software (Word, Excel, Outlook, OOTP6.5, FM2005, and a few others). I am pretty much Mac ignorant; I know there is software to run/emulate Windows software on a Mac, but I have no idea what I should get, how well it works, etc.

Suggestions from the Mac faithful (if any)?

I just setup a public league at NFL.com. If anyone is interested in joining, please sign up in the next day or two; live draft is Aug 18 at 7:45PM EST.

I have played yahoo FF for several years, but my dad tells me that NFL.com is much better, so I figured I would give it a go. Look forward to seeing you there!

Not that I am a Bears fan or a Gators fan, but when are we going to say “the hell with preseason” and put a stop to the insanity? Grossman went down with a broken ankle against the St. Louis Rams earlier tonight.

Why not eliminate the preseason, and expand the rosters for several weeks? I say give the teams 10 extra roster spots for weeks 1-4, and 5 extra roster spots weeks 5-10. The practice squad could also be expanded by 5 positions for the first eight weeks of the season. This would give teams plenty of time to evaluate talent, and hold on to guys on the bubble well into the season to compensate for the lack of preseason games.

No one wants their team’s season to go in the ditch in preseason. Sure, it is not much better to have it happen in the first few games, but at least those injuries “count” while the preseason games do not matter for squat.

Take it from a Falcons fan, the NFL preseason sucks.

Well, it finally happened. I guess it was inevitable – my PC has been crippled by a nasty boot virus. I have been using Norton 2002 for 4+ years, and it has always been a trusty little friend. Alas, Norton let me down this week, despite faithfully renewing my support license year after year, in spite of running daily checks to pull down the latest virus definitions, even with scheduled full scans ever Sunday.

Yes, I am a beaten, bitter man. Hackers suck, and virus are just as bad. It is too bad that folks cannot put their creative juices into something more useful. Instead of enjoying the latest version of Madden (oh yes I will Chris), I have been trying to recover my machine, but my efforts have been fruitless.

I pulled down AVG Antivirus and gave it a spin. It did clean up a few things, but not enough. Ironically enough, my ISP is now offering CA’s suite (antivirus, spam, firewall protection, etc) for free, but it is several days too late for me.

Congratulations to Tony Stewart on an awesome 2005 Brickyard 400 win! I only got to watch the last third of the race, but what I saw was very entertaining. It was great to see the emotion pour from Stewart – he really appreciated what he did today, and appreciated all that has come before him at the historic track.