To better understand and appreciate the significance of this landmark achievement I need to give you a little history.

Dad has owned every single Madden since the original Super Nintendo. The only year he didn’t get Madden was the year they didn’t release it for Playstation 1 (so he bought NFL Gameday). That is over 15 years of video game football. Every year we play, and every year his superior running game and knowledge of actual football is enough to grind me into a very fine powder.

15 years of him dominating and crushing my feeble football skills.

Dad has been a lifelong football fan. Our family van is decked out Raider style in silver and black with skulls and everything. The first thing you see when you walk into our house is a poster celebrating Raider legends. In fact, if you cut him he actually bleeds Raider silver and black. To go along with this life long love of the Raiders is a passion for the game itself; he just loves football.

He has the NFL Sunday Ticket package so he can watch every single game on Sunday. He is currently in 4 different Fantasy Football Leagues. He has played or coached football for more years than I have been alive.

It is not just me that he crushes. His online record for Madden 2009 is something like 100 wins and 50 losses, which is even more impressive when you find out he only plays top tier opponents. He doesn’t pad his wins with easy pickings like a lot of online gamers. When I was growing up, he would challenge and defeat all of my friends, my little brother’s friends, my little sisters’ friends, and even people from church that mentioned they enjoyed Madden.

There have been flashes, brief moments where I think I can take him down. But every time he disabuses me of that notion. With 2001 I thought my Randy Moss post pattern was invincible, he taught me the beauty of a good pass rush. In 2004 when I thought the skills I had picked up online would carry me through, he taught me the hurry up offense and how it can disrupt a defense.

Every year Madden would come out and I would learn a little bit more about the game of football. I stopped picking my defense based on which play had the coolest name. No more Red Dog and Atomic Blitz. I actually began to learn the difference between a Nickel and Dime defense. For mobile Quarterbacks I learned to have one of my Linebackers Spy the QB. I figured out a Zone defense makes interceptions a little easier but leaves little holes in your defense. I made dozens of little improvements over the years.

On offense I stopped going for it on 4th down every time; no more 4th and 28 Hail Mary passes. I learned there were other offensive sets besides Shotgun. I even began to learn how an effective running game can eat up clock and set up Play Action passes and force the defense to put 8 in the box (more defensive players at the line of scrimmage) which frees up your receivers with one-on-one coverage.

It was all futile.

My record against Dad was something like 0-100.

For every stride I made, he had a counter. It was like every time I raised my game he had already raised his to a higher level. I was getting better, but I still wasn’t good enough to take him down. I could crush all of my friends, but the victories were hollow since I could not beat dad.

With the recent release of Madden 2010, I saw my opportunity. He had played 2009 so much that the little tweaks would bother him way more than they would bother me. While he would have to reprogram his brain I would just be playing the game. So like a T-Rex with sharks for arms I struck.

17 years of crushing victories were forgotten as I exploited mismatches in the secondary and pounded the ball on the ground with Ladainian Tomlinson (L.T.). It wasn’t flashy but it didn’t need to be. It was effective. As the game progressed I began to think I might have a shot at winning. His defense couldn’t stop L.T. and my tight end Antonio Gates always seemed to find the seam in the coverage.

On defense I felt like I was playing with 12 men. I was actually able to find just the right combination of blitzes that I made Adrien Peterson a non-factor. My defensive linemen even managed to get to the quarterback and force him out of the pocket enough to disrupt the passing game. He was constantly scrambling and reacting to me rather than forcing me to react to him.

I kept expecting some kind of miraculous comeback. I kept waiting for him to pull it out like he always had before, but as the time ticked off the clock I was still ahead on the scoreboard. He needed to recover an onside kick to even have a shot. Our teams lined up for the onside kick, my hands sweating and my mouth dry I watched as his kicker kicked off. The ball bounced once and then landed right in the hands of my player. As he was tackled the breath I didn’t even realize I was holding in escaped in an audible gasp.

As my offense trotted out to the field I frantically searched for the QB kneel play. There was no way I was going to relive “the Miracle at the Meadowlands.” I knelt down and the clock ran out.

I had won.

I had beat Dad.

At Madden.

He turned to me and smiled “Good game. Rematch?”

Tags: EA, ea sports, family, football, Madden, NFL, sports, sports games

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.