The Host
Every great Madden tournament begins
with a one of your friends opening up his bed room, living room, or usually his
garage. Normally the group will concede the rights to play first to The Host.
After all, it is his game you’re playing and probably his fridge that you’re
going to clear out. A common trait among Hosts is that instead of betting for
money, they want to lay their household chores down on the wager table. If you’re
not careful you could end up taking out this guy’s trash for a month.
Mr. “Double or Nothing”
I have two older cousins named Jeremy
and Jesse. Well, I have about 50 older cousins, but for now we’ll just focus on
these two. Jeremy was always the typical oldest brother. He was stronger than
you, better at sports than you, listened to cooler music than you, and had more
freedom than you did. Now Jesse was only a couple of years younger than Jeremy,
so he looked for an opportunity to close the gap between himself and his older
brother. Enter: Madden ’08. With a group of us younger guys huddled around the
small TV in my aunt’s garage, Jeremy and Jesse duked it out for sibling
supremacy in games that would certainly go down in the annals of NFL history
had they played out in real life. Whenever Jeremy won, Jesse would reach into
his pocket without a second thought, lay down more money, and say “double or
nothing” without even looking up from the screen. Sometimes the gamble worked
out for Jesse, but more often than not Jeremy would leave the garage all of
Jesse’s money and his shift of dish cleaning duty taken care of for a few
weeks. Mr. Double or Nothing is easy to take advantage of because he just knows he almost had you. You can score
a pretty payday when you challenge one of these Madden-ites. And keep it close
when you beat them, they HATE that.
The Hustler
Every guy has a hustler friend. He
shows up when you bring new friends around, pretends to be terrible at Madden,
and then ends up revealing his talent once a little more money gets thrown
down. My buddy Matt, who was in the Navy, told me about a friend he had named
Bookie. Bookie would hang around whenever fellow shipmen were holding Madden
tournaments and feign ignorance whenever he was challenged. Once he lost the
first game, Bookie would give them the old “I think I’m getting the hang of
this, let’s bet a little more money and I’ll play you again”. Once they agreed,
Bookie would proceed to slaughter his opponent and take his money. Now of
course, a Hustler’s game can’t work consistently. He needs to constantly play
with people who don’t know him, otherwise the ruse is up. If you’re a hustler,
make you sure you’re good enough to beat the guys you hang with all the time if
you want to keep those pockets of yours heavy.
The Super Fan
It’s the first weekend of football
season, your buddy just bought a PS4, and you’re finally going to play Madden
15 for the first time. You show up with your Tostitos Scoops and queso dip, and
your face drops. Why? Because Gary’s here. Rocking a Seahawks jersey with a
Seahawks beanie and a pair of officially licensed Seahawks gloves, Gary is the
Super Fan of your circle. Super Fans refuse to play with any team other than
theirs and insist on taking home field advantage because they “need to play in
front of their fans” for that extra boost to victory. These guys will take 20
minutes before the game making sure the team is wearing their favorite
throwback jersey and adjusting the roster so that all of the hidden gems on the
bench (whose names they know by heart, of course) are in as starters. Super
Fans will talk to their players throughout the game as if they actually hear
them, addressing everyone by their first name. Ex: “Really Russell?! You have
to look the safety off before you throw that out route!” Ultimately, Super Fans
are generally not very good at Madden and will blame any loss on anything but
their own lack of skill.
Mr. Irrelevant
We all have that friend who sucks at
Madden and couldn’t really care less about it. He’s never been into videogames,
but he does enjoy watching the rest of the gang challenge each other. Whenever
you ask him to play he gives you his trademarked “I just don’t get it” or “It’s
a waste of time” answer. But if he ever does venture to pick up a controller
you’re immediately caught in conundrum. If you lose to him, you’ll never hear
the end of it. If you destroy him, the guy might never play videogames again.
Your safest bet is beat Mr. Irrelevant by no more than three touchdowns. That way
you don’t have to crush his spirit and he can tell himself that he almost beat
you. He’ll probably tell everyone else too; they seem to love that. Ever heard
this one before? “Dude, it was like my third time playing and I scored three
touchdowns!” It’s okay to let Mr. Irrelevant revel in his imagined glory. If you
don’t particularly care about anyone’s feelings then these games are a great
time to practice any trick plays or exotic schemes that you’ve been unsure
about using during a serious match.
“See me on the field”
Guy
“See me on the field” or SMF is the
guy in your group who played one and a half seasons of high school football
(college if you’re in a particularly athletic circle) and never moved on from
the glory days. So basically…he’s me. When you beat SMF he will go into an
extensive explanation of the mistakes he made because he thinks that he’s still
breaking down film ahead of an actual game. He may sound something like, “Well
yeah man you can’t win when you keep underthrowing the ball in the flat, my
deep coverage was horrible the safeties didn’t pick up anybody”. Any taunting
towards SMF will only yield his patented challenge, “but you won’t see me on
the field though!” What he (me) is trying to say here is “Yes, you can beat me
in football on this PlayStation, but if we actually go outside and play
football for real, I’ll win because, don’t forget, I rode the bench for a
mediocre team in high school”. It’s almost more annoying to lose to SMF because
his explanations for victory are EVEN LONGER than his excuses for losing. This may
sound familiar, “Oh man, I saw the safety cheat down into the box and I was
like ‘I got him!’ so when my receiver crossed the middle I already knew…” Over
it yet? A SMF’s only positive trait is that because of some self-appointed
sense of honor in the world of digital sports, they will always compliment you
on a good win and concede respect when you do something exceptional during the
game. It’s almost enough to make their wannabe coach speeches worth it.
The Champion
A Champion is easy to spot. He’s
always playing with the first controller, he always gets to be the home team,
and half of the time he seems generally disinterested in the game. You see, the
hard about being a Champion is that you eventually grow weary of being better
than all of your friends. Trash talk is old hat for them; they score touchdowns
without so much as a smirk crossing their face. The Champ might play the first
few games when everyone gets together, but he soon ends up eschewing the “winner
stays” rule and giving the controller to someone else. A Champion is the kind
of person who would rather play a game with his Franchise team and turn the
difficulty up to All-Pro rather than challenge his friends. It’s lonely at the
top, and being a Champion can change you as a person. When Madden 25 came out a
guy at a party beat me 45-0, then continued the conversation he was having with
his friend as if nothing had happened. It was the most terrifying experience of
my life.
I hope this list left you a little
more prepared for the wiles of the Madden world. Most of you probably knew
exactly which of your friends was being described while reading the different
profiles. Most of probably also saw yourself on the list and didn’t want to
admit it, but we don’t have to go into that right now. If you have any
hilarious stories about your Madden friends, drop them in the comments section.
We might even share them with everyone. No matter what your style may be, we can all
unite under the banner of loving football. Rejoice, it’s Madden season.
By the way, one of my favorite sports
journalists, DJ Gallo, wrote an in-depth article about ratings in the new
Madden. I think you’ll find it very…educational. Here’s a sample:
Until next time, folks! Let’s play
some Madden!
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