Your Sports Game Injuries.....

[bangtango]

Those of you who play sports games, particularly in Season or Franchise Mode, have surely lost key players at one point or another.

This is a two part thread.

The objective here is to post your own stories of injuries you have incurred or dished out in sports video games. This would primarily include football, baseball, basketball or hockey games but any other sports in which injuries can occur are perfectly acceptable.


PART 1: Injuries to your own player

To me, the more the injury to your player pissed you off or inconvenienced you the better.

So tell me what injuries you've suffered through in a sports video game. What game(s)? What player(s)? What type(s) of injury? How long did you lose the player(s) for?

Here is an examples of what I'm looking for......

1. An injury which prevented your player from breaking a single game record or a season record. Such as touchdowns in a single game or season, rushing yards in a single game or season, home runs in a season.

2. An injury which ruined your season, meaning it cost you a playoff spot or directly caused you to lose a playoff game.

3. An injury to one of your favorite players who you simply hated to lose because you wanted him to see the season through or you just wanted to pad his stats.

4. An injury that was particularly long. Examples being "career ending injuries" in a Madden game or perhaps a player who is injured in the very beginning of the season and is lost for the rest of the year.

5. Anything else in between.


Feel free to elaborate on how you coped with or compensated for these particular injuries you mention in your post. Did you decide to trade for some extra help at that position? Did you sign a free agent? Did you simply rely on your own depth chart that was already established?


Part 2: Injuries to an opposing player

In addition to the above, I'd like to hear about particularly good injuries you have dished out either to a computer opponent or a human opponent. Again, name the game, player, injury and the results (how long it took them out for).

Perhaps you took out the computer controlled Peyton Manning in a Madden or NFL 2K game by hitting him with 4 or 5 sacks, the last of which knocked him out of action for ten weeks or so.


Gonna sit on my own stories until this thread needs a cheap bump :)

[TwinChargers]

Sorry to steal the thread, but this is related, honest.

Remember on early Madden games, atleast on the Genesis, when you'd be running with one of your guys and suddenly he'd fall down and you'd hear this horrendous cracking sound and Pat Summerall would exclaim "Oh No!"
You'd go see what the injury was that was so brutal and it was something like "Bruised Thigh" or "Flu-like Symptoms". My cousin and I would laugh and laugh over this.

Now I can't remember one exact instance, but it was hilarious at the time.

[ToddofDoom]

Part 1:

I have had endured a multitude of oddball sports game injuries.

Oddball Injury #1:
Once in Madden 2002, playing in franchise mode as a created team (inserted into the Texans expansion team spot) I got my kicker (Gramatica, who was one of my big name free agent signings) injured late in the year around week 14 (I think it was against the Vikings.) He was tackled while kicking an extra point. He was only out for something like three weeks, but it was annoying because the injury was a sprained wrist.

All I could think was "Why can't a kicker kick with a sprained wrist?" Compounding my frustration was the fact that I had to sign a new kicker and with a full roster that meant releasing a player. I know it is just a silly video game, but I felt bad about one of my back-up defensive linemen playing with my team all season and not getting his Super Bowl ring because some silly kicker sprained his wrist.

Oddball Injury #2:
In NCAA 2003 I was playing a Dynasty with UAB. In my second season I had started the season 5-0 and was beating Southern Miss 31-0 in the rain. My hot-shot freshman quarterback was running and passing all over them and leading my team down for another score before halftime. On a routine play I didn't have any receivers open so I scrambled downfield. After running about seven yards downfield a defender started to close in on me.

"I'll run out of bounds, I don't want to get my quarterback hurt," I thought. I then ran out of bounds. Then the Southern Miss linebacker proceeded to dive and tackle my quarterback a good four yards out of bounds. My quarterback was injured, making things worse the ref didn't even throw a flag. He was out for five weeks with a sprained ankle.

In those five weeks I played four games. Two of them were against teams in the top 25. They were all nerve-rackingly close games I won. After that every game seemed easy for a long time.

Oddball Injury #3:
Once in an NBA 2k3 season as the Sonics and I had an insane amount of injuries to my starting players. It seemed like every time I would get someone back in the line-up someone else would get hurt. It was so bad I rarely used my starters. If I was ahead I'd put in my backups. If I got behind, I would also put in my backups. The answer for any situation became "Put in your backups."

I had three starters that played in less than half the regular season games.

I remember liking certain players that I found deep on the bench. I remember using a player named Forte a lot after finding out that he seemed to be great at stealing the ball. Of course, I have yet to find a basketball game where "Defense" isn't just running up and down the court waving your arms around like a jackass.

Oddball Injury #4:
In Franchise mode in NHL2k4 I injured one of my own players while shooting (puck hit him). It was funny because the puck hit him low (like on his legs) and the injury was listed as "Bruised shoulder". It didn't really frustrate me because he only missed a couple games, but I thought it was really funny.

Injury #5:
It wasn't really oddball, back in the day I was playing NFL Quarterback Club 98. I started a season as the Dolphins because Dan Marino was one of my favorite players. On the first series of the first game he tore his rotator cuff and was listed as "Out for the season". This is one of the few injuries that made me hit the power button.

Part 2:

I have also dished out some good injuries.

I was playing NCAA Football 2003 with a friend once (He was Cinncinatti. I was playing as Air Force) and his quarterback kept getting knocked out of the game with less than serious injuries. Things like "Migrane Headaches" and "Wind knocked out" and things like that. After the third or fourth time he got hurt we started laughing about it. Saying that he just didn't want to play. Joking that he had to go get a hot dog and flirt with the cheerleaders.

In Final Four 2003 (I think, might have to check the year) my strategy for being outmatched was to sub in my back-ups and have them flagrant foul my opponent's star players until they didn't have any good players left. For some reason the rate of injuries with flagrant fouls is very high and by the time a player fouled out he could usually hurt two or three players. Within a few minutes the other team would be down to untalented players and I would only be down 8-12 points. Which was easy to overcome once their star players were gone. It worked really well.

In the fifth season of my NCAA Football 2003 dynasty I was playing Louisville and was able to crush all of my previous sack records because I put their quarterback out early in the 1st quarter and the back up was so slow that I sacked him on practically every pass play. This has been almost the sole time an injury in a game has really worked out to my favor.

In one NHL2k6 season I was playing the New Jersey Devils (as the Nashville Predators). Late in the third period I protecting a two goal lead. One of my oddball strategies when protecting a lead in a hockey game is to commit a penalty so that I can ice the puck as much as I want. My preferred way of commiting a penalty is to take a run at the opposing goalie and get called for goaltender interference. This is mainly because the animation of the goalie flopping over makes me laugh. So I checked Martin Brodeur at full speed with one of my forwards and he tore his ACL and was out for the year. I felt bad for completely ruining the Devils season.

I was playing Winning Eleven 8 once and knocked an opponent's player out during a League match. His injury was listed as "Detached Retina". I thought that was a badass injury.

That concludes my oddball sports injuries.

[mnbren05]

Most of my injuries are Madden/NCAA related as I play the hell out of those games.

Part 1:
Playing as the Seahawks in Madden 07 in the same game All Madden diff. Alexander, Tatupu, Jackson, and Wallace are hurt by half time. (bruised ribs, back spasms, knee, and back spasm). Still holding off the Panthers 24-21 and I was up to get the ball back after the half. After the half, kick off to my player and made it to their 48yd line. I had been saving Hasselback because he always got injured in the reg season and had just come back two weeks before. I brought him out and made 3 connections and a scramble to come up 4th and 1 and I decide to throw a quick pass to the side possibly scramble. I opt for a play action boot leg. Roll out make the pass and get tackled. Pass goes for 12yds complete. Hasselback out with with a acl injury. I have to play the freaking punter at QB and back up running back the rest of the game. I scored on that drive barely and then was unable to score the rest of the game or keep much coverage on the field. Boils down to a 31-42 loss. Still pisses me off. (Note * third stringer Green was only in for two downs before suffering a 2 quarter injury on a QB scramble)

The only other major injury I had came when I moved San Diego Chargers to Virginia in Madden 09 and kept the roster. The major injury came when I lost Rivers to shoulder injury and had to play back up Rookie cp created Eric Stanbaugh. Great stats but he fumbled so often and could never hit LT with a pass. Nearly costing me a Wild Card spot and eventually costing me the Super Bowl.

Part 2:
Injuries against other players so many to choose from hit stick makes me a dangerous player in Madden. My one friend is particuarly bad at QB scramble and I guard this against my life. As Carson Palmer in Madden 09 he tried to make a 5 yd run and I nailed him putting him out with a arm break. Backup Fitzpatrick suffered concussion from two sacks not too long afterwards. Left with a shakey Jeff Rowe, he opted to run as he lead 12-14 he had Marion Barber signed up on his roster and proceeded to keep pounding us and make a few quick passes. I played all out blitz for the remainder of the game and eventually got MB with Keith Rivers for a ankle injury. Next play was a pass, QB intercepted returned for a TD I win. Muwhahahahaha!

Against the Seahwaks as the Browns in Cleveland Madden 07 used Ted Whashington to sack Matt Hassleback twice over the game. The second sack lead to a career ending neck injury. I like Hassleback so I reset the game replayed the matchup and let him live to play another day.

[scooterb23]

I think I mentioned the strangest injury I ever had before. Game one of a season of Cal Ripken Jr. Baseball on the Genesis. First pitch of the season. A ball rolls to Cal Ripken Jr. who falls down, breaks his leg, and misses the entire season.

Strangest injury I ever gave?

In one of the Genesis Madden games, I found a bug that allowed me to attempt and actually sometimes block the opening kickoff. Well, one time I jumped in, and broke the kicker's leg before he made it to the ball. Guess what? It's not a penalty :)

[jcalder8]

I don't normally play with injuries on because in NHL 2K3, I think it was, I suffered a serious injury every 3-4 games, since then I always turn them off.

[ToddofDoom]

I think I mentioned the strangest injury I ever had before. Game one of a season of Cal Ripken Jr. Baseball on the Genesis. First pitch of the season. A ball rolls to Cal Ripken Jr. who falls down, breaks his leg, and misses the entire season.


Hahaha. I think someone pissed off a programmer.

[ryborg]

I think I mentioned the strangest injury I ever had before. Game one of a season of Cal Ripken Jr. Baseball on the Genesis. First pitch of the season. A ball rolls to Cal Ripken Jr. who falls down, breaks his leg, and misses the entire season.

lol

I have a friend who just LOVES Ed Reed. We were playing a Franchise in Madden 04 back then, he was the Ravens, I was the Bengals (it's not fun playing as a good team). We would actually play all Bengals-Ravens games and simulate the rest of the season.

Well, in one game, Ed Reed INTed Carson Palmer or whoever and just got drilled by one of my offensive linemen on the return. It cued the in-game injury video and two plays later, a pop-up window came up, saying he was going to be out for his career with a concussion (quite the quick assessment!).

Unfortunately, I didn't grab a photo of that in time, but I did take a photo of the aftermath in the injury list. I still use this photo all the time to rib my friend, mostly as my avatar in the one fantasy football league we're in.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v176/vecede/edreedinjured.jpg

[scooterb23]

Out for his career...now that's what I call getting JACKED UP!

That's awesome.

[Nirvana]

NFL 2k5

I was the Philadelphia Eagles playing the Minnesota Vikings. I came on a Safety Blitz with Dawkins, and I flew around the corner and totally jacked Daunte Culpepper up. He had a ruptured achilles, and it was listed as career ending. o_O

[bangtango]

Time for my own answers, at least half of them.....:)

Oftentimes in sports games, I am inflicted with multiple injuries at the same position. Some of these are detailed below.


INJURIES I'VE ENDURED:


1. MADDEN 2004 (XBOX)
-I was in Week 12 of a season from my Washington Redskins Franchise using a fantasy draft roster. I had three defensive tackles on my roster, who I believe were Dana Stubblefield, Ted Washington and Hollis Thomas. All three of them got injured in a single game, before the third quarter had finished. Thomas was out six weeks, Washington for four weeks and Stubblefield for two or three. Had to finish that game using players from a completely different position. On 4-3 plays, my third string center was one of the defensive tackles and my third string middle linebacker was the other. After the game was over, I was forced to sign a defensive tackle just to continue the season and get me by until Dana Stubblefield (the first guy due back) returned from the injury list. Since I usually fill all 54 roster spots by the end of the preseason, I was forced to release my 4th quarterback Jeff George just to get another defensive tackle on my roster.


2. MADDEN 2006 (XBOX)
-I was in Week 14 of a season from my fantasy draft Chicago Bears Franchise. I lost both of my free safeties in the same game. I was already down a cornerback and had been using a lot of Dime/Quarter defenses throughout the game. For some reason, the computer chose to substitute the 5th wide receiver on my depth chart, J.J. Stokes, into the game as a free safety. Weird......So I just used him until the game was finished, since he wasn't catching passes anyway. The way I saw it, it was time for Stokes to finally earn his salary. On the stat sheet, he deflected a pass and made a tackle. As it turns out, both of my free safeties were only "out for the game" and returned to my lineup the following week.


3. MADDEN 2007 (XBOX)
-I was in Week 5 of a season from my Bengals franchise and again using a fantasy draft roster. My starting quarterback was Kordell Stewart. (Don't laugh, I usually draft my starting QB very late in Madden and 2K fantasy drafts to fortify other positions first). I threw for a touchdown on a 3 WR set but Kordell got hit just as he was releasing the pass. The result was a season ending leg injury. The next highest rated guy on that particular Bengals team of mine was Craig Krenzel but the CPU controlled depth chart placed Ty Detmer ahead of Krenzel to open the season and I hadn't bothered to change it. Only a difference of a few ratings points anyway. So I proceeded to ride out the season with Ty Detmer, who didn't get hurt.


4. NBA INSIDE DRIVE 2003 (XBOX)
-Using a fantasy draft Celtics roster, I was about 2 weeks into the season when I lost one of my backups, Christian Laettner. I dunked with Laettner during one of his shifts on the floor. Immediately following the dunk, he was injured with a diagnosis of "elbow tendinitis" and out of action for 3 weeks.


5. NFL FEVER 2002 (XBOX)
-My current fantasy draft Chiefs team had 4 running backs to start the season: Ron Dayne, Antowain Smith, Reuben Droughns and Herbert Goodman. Ron Dayne was lost for the season in week 4 with a back injury. Antowain Smith was lost for the season in week 8 with an arm injury. I have 2 more weeks left in the season. My roster and cap are both maxed out and the trade deadline has long since passed. As a result, this leaves me with the two headed running back monster of Reuben Droughns and Herbert Goodman at the Half Back position as I limp towards the playoffs. That is not counting my two fullbacks, of course. My most dependable runner on this team is my starting fullback Sam Gash and he fumbles like a son of a bitch in NFL Fever 2002 so I am in deep shit with my rushing game here.





Playing as the Seahawks in Madden 07 in the same game All Madden diff. Alexander, Tatupu, Jackson, and Wallace are hurt by half time. (bruised ribs, back spasms, knee, and back spasm). Still holding off the Panthers 24-21 and I was up to get the ball back after the half. After the half, kick off to my player and made it to their 48yd line. I had been saving Hasselback because he always got injured in the reg season and had just come back two weeks before. I brought him out and made 3 connections and a scramble to come up 4th and 1 and I decide to throw a quick pass to the side possibly scramble. I opt for a play action boot leg. Roll out make the pass and get tackled. Pass goes for 12yds complete. Hasselback out with with a acl injury. I have to play the freaking punter at QB and back up running back the rest of the game. I scored on that drive barely and then was unable to score the rest of the game or keep much coverage on the field. Boils down to a 31-42 loss. Still pisses me off. (Note * third stringer Green was only in for two downs before suffering a 2 quarter injury on a QB scramble).

You ended up down to the punter at quarterback? That would never happen to me because I always carry four quarterbacks on ANY football video game roster right from preseason. No exceptions whatsoever. I do this in Madden, NFL 2K, NFL Fever, etc.

I do it even if it means I have to sign free agent scrubs or make a trade. So this also means that I do draft a quarterback after nearly every season in a Franchise Mode setting, oftentimes a lower rated one in the late rounds who can be signed cheaply for a year or two to serve as roster filler.

And if I am playing NCAA Football or something like that, I prefer to start Dynasty modes with college teams who already have four quarterbacks on the roster.

That and I love having four quarterbacks around during the preseason. I usually give the lion's share of the preseason snaps to the third and fourth string quarterbacks. A lot of people think I should use the first and second stringers more often for the Player Progression points but to me it is more important to keep my starters (at all positions) healthy rather than chasing a couple extra ratings points in meaningless games. So if a 3rd or 4th stringer at any position, like quarterback, gets injured during the preseason then I don't get particularly upset about it. Since he wasn't going to play in the regular season anyway, I can afford to let him heal over the course of a few weeks as he sits on the bench.

I actually use Cleo Lemon, in particular, as my 4th string preseason quarterback in a bunch of games (Madden & 2K). Since Cleo Lemon is near the bottom in overall ratings at quarterback for nearly every football game he is in, he is rarely picked up in fantasy drafts by the computer. That means I can just sign him to a free agent contract immediately after the fantasy drafts. Plus he isn't half bad if you have a solid O-line and use a lot of I-Formation plays, like I usually do. For whatever reason, I almost always get that specific guy (Lemon) on my roster for a lot of football games I play. So I've sort of grown attached to having him on my video game teams. Thus I occasionally "reward" him with 2-3 full series of playing time a season during lopsided games.

Something I despise about most of the Madden games is that if a computer controlled team loses the backup quarterback (2nd string) 90-95% of the time they automatically put in the punter to play quarterback even if that team has three or four quarterbacks on its roster. It is minor and doesn't happen that often (the computer team losing two quarterbacks) but that still pisses me off that EA never fixed that over the years.

I was playing a computer team a month ago in Madden 08 who lost the first two quarterbacks on its depth chart (Drew Brees and Kyle Boller). The computer left Patrick Ramsey (3rd string) and J.T. O'Sullivan (4th string) to rot on the bench while it ran the punter out there for 12 pass attempts. I checked his rating on the QB depth chart and the 12 pass attempts by that punter matched his overall rating as a QB. God only knows who the AI was going to put under center if I took out the punter, too.

[Iron Draggon]

how about injuries to yourself? I broke my arm in the mid 90's, which resulted in alot of bench time that made it too painful to play any games for very long

[bangtango]

I think I mentioned the strangest injury I ever had before. Game one of a season of Cal Ripken Jr. Baseball on the Genesis. First pitch of the season. A ball rolls to Cal Ripken Jr. who falls down, breaks his leg, and misses the entire season.

You told that story in another thread of mine, the Sports Blooper thread. Small world!

BTW, the best part of Cal Ripken Baseball was Ripken having monster stats which didn't resemble his real numbers at all.

[MachineGex]

I just got a "Super Tecmo Bowl 2008" reproduction cart for the NES. I started my first season and Adrian Peterson goes down in Week 2. Not all is lost, I still have a good back, Chester Taylor. He is doing a good job til week 5, when he goes down. They are both out and I stuck trying to finish the season without running the ball. I havent started week 7 yet, because without those two guys, I lost 20-0 in week 6.

[scooterb23]

You told that story in another thread of mine, the Sports Blooper thread. Small world!

BTW, the best part of Cal Ripken Baseball was Ripken having monster stats which didn't resemble his real numbers at all.


I knew I had told the story before! I guess it fits here better than in the blooper thread. I do have a new blooper to share...so I think I may dig it back up...

[thom_m]

Well, the only sports title I was REALLY into was Mutant League Football, so I guess my memory won't sort out a particular injury...

[Cryomancer]

Yeah if you enjoy injuries in your sports games, try Deathrow for xbox. Think basketball, with a tron disc, and the teams are all prisoners or mutants or something. You can win by killing off the entire other team.

[bangtango]

Yeah if you enjoy injuries in your sports games, try Deathrow for xbox. Think basketball, with a tron disc, and the teams are all prisoners or mutants or something. You can win by killing off the entire other team.

I've never heard of it before but that sounds good. Is it very HTF?

[mnbren05]

Had one today on my PSP Madden 09. Saints M. Colston (WR) tackled on a 5 yard pass against the Packers. Colston leaves game. Comes back 1 quater later and gets injured again. Comes back one quarter later gets tackled again drops ball. Out with knee injury 6 weeks. Putting him out till the play offs. Packers A. Rodgers (QB) in the 3rd out with a knee injury out for 6 weeks also. Strange.

[scooterb23]

@Bangtango - Deathrow is a great underappreciated XBox game. I see it for around $10 at well stocked EB stores all the time.

[Kitsune Sniper]

My god, this thread is hilarious.

I hate sports games in general. The only things that I did in them were:

A) Baseball games - pitch and hit the guys at bat on purpose until I lost 10-0 on the first inning.

B) Nintendo World Cup. I chose Mexico, played against Cameroon, then proceed to tackle the shit outta everyone in the opposing team until they just stay on the ground for a minute or so. Too bad I could never tackle the damn goalie...

[Cryomancer]

Yeah, Deathrow shouldn't be too hard to come by, and it shouldn't cost much either. One of the only sports games I enjoy.

I've also played a fair amount of Bad News Baseball in my time, which you can hit the batter with a pitch in, but it just gives him a base.

[Nebagram]

Once whilst playing Premier Manager 97 on the Mega Drive (suprisingly conclusive and addictive despite its limitations, but certainly no CM) one of my players, who hadn't played in any of the last (I think) 6 games spontaneously broke a toe and was out for 39 (three nine) weeks. To this day I'm convinced I tripped a glitch somewhere.

[ryborg]

...using a fantasy draft roster.....

I noticed that you use a fantasy draft roster in a few of your stories. Do you (or anyone) find that mode challenging at all? It's fun to draft, but the computer is so ungodly bad at it. They'll take a 38-year-old OT who's 71 overall in the third round over a guy like Lofa Tatupu. It's too easy to draft yourself a murder's row of superstars under the age of 25 who will win you seven Super Bowls in a row, even on All-Madden or the equivalent.

[mnbren05]

You'd be surprised how much fantasy draft changes the game. The cpu usually takes best available at whatever position. I've fantasy drafted several times but I never like the results. I end up with a team thats either great offense or great on defense. If I try to do both I usually end up with crappy players inbetween great ones. Makes the game challenging in a sense of team management and operations (kind of equals out the league).

PSP Madden 09 had 5 bruised forearms today. I guess thats what all the cool kids get after all.

[scooterb23]

I noticed that you use a fantasy draft roster in a few of your stories. Do you (or anyone) find that mode challenging at all? It's fun to draft, but the computer is so ungodly bad at it. They'll take a 38-year-old OT who's 71 overall in the third round over a guy like Lofa Tatupu. It's too easy to draft yourself a murder's row of superstars under the age of 25 who will win you seven Super Bowls in a row, even on All-Madden or the equivalent.

I almost always play games with a fantasy draft. I actually do think it is a challenge at times. I think my problem (especially in baseball games) is I like to pick players I like...who tend to be the older players in the league. So after 1-2 seasons, I'm having to take a bunch of rookies, and then screwing up the team with bad trades, all because I had so many retirees (had my entire starting rotation retire on me one off season). I get a kick out of that for some reason.

[jcalder8]

I always do fantasy drafts because I hate what my team has done with their roster.


I almost always play games with a fantasy draft. I actually do think it is a challenge at times. I think my problem (especially in baseball games) is I like to pick players I like...who tend to be the older players in the league. So after 1-2 seasons, I'm having to take a bunch of rookies, and then screwing up the team with bad trades, all because I had so many retirees (had my entire starting rotation retire on me one off season). I get a kick out of that for some reason.
I draft the younger players for this exact reason.

[bangtango]

I noticed that you use a fantasy draft roster in a few of your stories. Do you (or anyone) find that mode challenging at all? It's fun to draft, but the computer is so ungodly bad at it. They'll take a 38-year-old OT who's 71 overall in the third round over a guy like Lofa Tatupu. It's too easy to draft yourself a murder's row of superstars under the age of 25 who will win you seven Super Bowls in a row, even on All-Madden or the equivalent.

I find fantasy draft makes the game easier, at least in your first season of a Franchise. But I have more fun that way. I've been a rabid Patriots fan since the 1980's. However, I have absolutely NO desire to play as them (their "real" roster) in a video game if that makes sense.

I actually don't use the fantasy draft to handpick a bunch of young superstars with a low cap number.

What I occasionally do with the fantasy draft is get a collection of veterans who are a season or two away from retirement. I generally find out whom by simming a few seasons a couple of times to get a clue as to what guys will be retiring first. Then when I start up for real, I proceed to draft a few of them with the intent of replacing them in the following draft (assuming they do retire).

When starting up a franchise and after the fantasy draft is over, I usually have 4 or 5 roster spots left open. I generally sign a few bottom feeder free agents to 1 or 2 year deals, guys rated in the 50's or 60's and the worst at their given position. People who weren't taken in the fantasy draft. They go on the very end of my bench. However I proceed to use the preseason or garbage time in the regular season (blowouts) to get them playing time and develop them.

I tend to have a lot of fun taking scrub free agents or draft picks who are rated very lowly and then develop them through Player Progression into superstar players over the years.

That and I amuse myself by fantasy drafting a lot of first round flameouts. I've made playoff runs with the likes of Ryan Leaf, Akili Smith, Tim Couch, Rick Mirer and Joey Harrington under center. You'd think something like that would get old after the first few times, but for me it never does.

Of course I use fantasy draft for a variety of reasons, which I'll briefly detail below.

1. As you know, some default team rosters in any football game you'll find often have unbalanced rosters. I've checked out default rosters in games which contained too many players at a position (6 defensive tackles, 5 quarterbacks, etc.) or not enough players at a position (only 1 strong safety with no backup, only 1 center with no backup, etc.). Making a bunch of trades right off the bat to correct this is a bit of a hassle to me, so I use the fantasy draft to get a more balanced roster containing a suitable number of players at every position.

2. On offense I don't use audibles very often and I generally use slow-footed pocket passers (Mark Brunell for example) since I don't do a lot of scrambling with the QB. As a result, I rely on a rock-solid offensive line and prefer to cherry pick the members of that line.

3. To be honest, I am good at running and passing the ball. I am good at stopping the run and sacking the quarterback but I am not particularly good at stopping the pass, especially in Madden. I am horrible at defending the pass in nearly every football game out there, aside from the 2K ones. So I like to have highly rated cornerbacks and safeties, which is where the fantasy draft comes in. Since I play better against the run, I can afford to have lower rated middle linebackers and defensive tackles. Using the fantasy draft allows me to establish them as a lower priority and draft them later. I usually control those guys more often and turn over some of the pass defense duties to the higher rated cornerbacks and safeties controlled by the computer (the AI is sometimes suspect but still plays a better pass defense than I do).

4. I can usually get back with quarterbacks and running backs with ratings in the 70's. So I don't really "need" guys with 92-94 ratings. The highest rated quarterback I have used in months in any Madden game is Mark Brunell in Madden 08. I've got a fantasy drafted team right now with DJ Shockley starting.......So I prefer fantasy drafting guys with lower ratings at QB and HB, since I manage to do well enough regardless of their ratings. What this means is that I often end up with a roster full of quarterbacks and halfbacks who are all within 2-3 points of each other. That may seem like I have a deficiency but in reality it means I rarely miss a beat if my starter goes down at either position. Ain't much difference between Garrison Hearst and Emmitt Smith (circa 2004/2005) at halfback or Kordell Stewart & Shane Matthews at QB.



That isn't to say I use fantasy draft exclusively in every game I play. Most of the time in NFL 2K5, I use the default Lions roster which is a horrible team from top to bottom. It is a challenge to win with that team, especially when I trade Joey Harrington to ride out the season with Mike McMahon as my starter. Then there are some other games I use "real" rosters in (i.e. the default Bears team in NFL 2K2).

Give me an NBA video game from around 2002-2003, though, and I use nothing but fantasy draft. I can't resist building my personal dream team with the likes of Shawn Kemp, Penny Hardaway, Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Grant Hill, Antoine Walker, Patrick Ewing.....basically all of my favorites.

NBA Inside Drive 2002 & 2003 are both gems if you liked the NBA in the early-to-late 1990's. Basically everybody from that era of the NBA is still in those two games, albeit a little bit older and with lower player ratings but get on a roll with fantasy draft in those two games and you can make like it is 1992-1996 all over again. Sort of like a reunion of a lot of guys who were in the first two NBA Jam games. Awesome stuff.......

[ryborg]

That and I amuse myself by fantasy drafting a lot of first round flameouts. I've made playoff runs with the likes of Ryan Leaf, Akili Smith, Tim Couch, Rick Mirer and Joey Harrington under center. You'd think something like that would get old after the first few times, but for me it never does.

Yeah, I do this too, but I sim almost every game (it seems that you play most from what you write), and it seems that with most games (especially Madden), certain players or teams are seemingly cursed and no matter what you do, these teams or players will not succeed. You could surround Akili Smith with 99s at all positions but his team won't win, especially if you put him on a notoriously bad team (like the Lions or 49ers in recent Maddens).


On offense I don't use audibles very often and I generally use slow-footed pocket passers (Mark Brunell for example) since I don't do a lot of scrambling with the QB.

I am the opposite. Seneca Wallace is my boy. Too bad I can never win a simmed title with him.


NBA Inside Drive 2002 & 2003 are both gems if you liked the NBA in the early-to-late 1990's.

I don't have an XBOX, so no Inside Drive for me, but i love the old NBA Live games from that era. The one year, I think it's 2000, the game is insanely broken for all rookies. For whatever reason, all rookies, no matter when they were drafted, are absolutely amazing.

I remember playing a season with the Hawks, and I put in their scrubs for garbage time and I found out that Roshawn McLeod (or however you spell it) literally cannot be stopped. I went around the league and found that as long as you were a rookie, you could hit almost all of your threes if you were a G-SF or you could dunk over anyone if you were a PF-C.

Oh, I meant to post this in my last response, but the most broken fantasy draft game I've ever played is easily NHL2k7. I did a fantasy draft with the Panthers a few months ago (why not, they have no fans otherwise), and in year two, 95% of my young roster was a 99 and I was winning almost all simmed games with scores like 12-2. That's ridiculous.

[bangtango]

Yeah, I do this too, but I sim almost every game (it seems that you play most from what you write), and it seems that with most games (especially Madden), certain players or teams are seemingly cursed and no matter what you do, these teams or players will not succeed. You could surround Akili Smith with 99s at all positions but his team won't win, especially if you put him on a notoriously bad team (like the Lions or 49ers in recent Maddens).

I do play all of my own games, including preseason. It means that getting through multiple seasons can take awhile, especially if I have a few Franchises I am playing through simultaneously but I manage........

I've noticed the same thing when I sim games, that my team struggles due to the makeup of my fantasy draft roster. The only time I really sim in Madden is maybe 2/3 of the way through the season. I do it just to sneak a peek at how the draft plays out at the end of whatever season I am in. Then I jot down where some of the guys/positions I am interested get picked (by the computer), for future reference. But I immediately eject the disc afterwards to revert back to whatever week I was at in the regular season.

The only sports game(s) I really sim are those text based Baseball and Football Manager games for PC but that is par for the course since you don't play games in those anyway.

Speaking of cursed players, I can name a few guys like that. But I will mainly list guys with good ratings who don't play nearly as well as those ratings suggest. Instead they underperform to the point of frustration.

Baseball: I've used Chuck Knoblauch in three or four baseball games and he always produces lousy stats for my team, even though he has a high player rating in a lot of games (80-85 overall rating). After finishing a fantasy draft in which I grab Knoblauch, the computer usually sticks him in the leadoff spot. He stinks up my lineup (as a hitter) so bad in every game I ever had him on my roster that I usually have to bench him, trade him or send him to the minors.

No matter who my backup is in any of the games, including guys with a 50 rating like Benji Gil, Jeff Frye or Donnie Sadler, they always manage to outperform Knoblauch offensively by a country mile. Knoblauch makes good contact in video games but he hits a lot of weak, piss dribbler ground balls to third or a lot of pop-ups to the second baseman. He sucks. Damion Easley sucks, too. He has ratings of around 85 in the XBox World Series Baseball games but plays like a guy in the 50's. I had him on rosters twice only to bench him for second stringers who always manage to beat him out for the starting job.

Football: Fullback Sam Gash has good player ratings but fumbles like crazy in any video football game. He fumbles upwards of once per game on average, which is made worse by the fact that I would only give him 1-2 carries in those games. I've purged him from my roster in every game but Madden 2005 and NFL Fever 2002, neither of which I can rid him from because the trade deadline has passed and/or I am out of cap room to sign a replacement.

Basketball: Avery Johnson and Vin Baker. Ex-Mavericks coach Avery Johnson has a good player rating yet he is capable of missing easy layups or shots inside the paint like nobody else in a basketball video game. He puts up shooting percentages you'd sooner expect from the bottom five centers in the free agent list. I've used him in a bunch of games as a backup and he gets outperformed by scrub guys who are 10-15 ratings points worse than him across the board.

Vin Baker has very good player ratings in several NBA games, generally from his later days with the Sonics or his time with the Celtics. But he always lays an egg when he has the ball in his hands anytime I've ever been controlling him. I get stuck with the guy because I occasionally use "default" Celtic rosters in some NBA games during the time period he stunk up Boston, so he is on my teams. The guy sucks so badly in those video games, particularly in the area of shot percentage.

Plus for some reason he fouls at a much higher rate than anybody else on those Celtics rosters. Baker usually has 6 fouls by the third quarter even though I'd play defense with him the exact same way I did with other guys who would only put up one or two fouls. I would usually bury Vin Baker on the inactive list behind two other (lower rated) players at his same position. That is if I don't trade him. But then again, his performance in those games is consistent with the stench he permeated while on the Celtics following one of the worst trades in Boston sports history.

In real life, Baker missed a ton of Celtics games due to a drinking problem and when he did play he'd occasionally have a hangover and would sweat like a pig on the court. Not to mention the Celtics were crazy enough to take on his bloated contract in trade which literally killed their cap.

Of course Vin Baker's tenure in Boston was ended by Isaiah Thomas who came to the rescue when he took Baker off the Celtics hands. Isaiah thought Baker would fit right in with those Knicks teams he was running. By all accounts, Baker fit in great with the dysfunctional, overpaid, underperforming handpicked Isaiah Thomas Knicks.

And if I remember right, the Celtics were still paying insane money (millions) to Vin Baker because of his contract for a couple more years following that, which was long after he had played his way off of the Knicks.


I am the opposite. Seneca Wallace is my boy. Too bad I can never win a simmed title with him.

I like Seneca Wallace in the real life NFL, he is underrated and a great athlete. However I found him to be a turnover machine in NFL 2K5, which is the only game I ever used him in. I had a Fantasy Draft in which I missed someone who I had wanted to draft (Jon Kitna perhaps?). The guy I wanted had got taken just one slot before me. At that point I really needed a first string quarterback, so I grabbed Seneca. Part of it may have been me being pissed off about not getting who I wanted, so I never gave Seneca a fair shot. I don't know..........what I do know is he ended up buried at the end of my bench after throwing one touchdown versus six interceptions in the preseason.




I don't have an XBOX, so no Inside Drive for me, but i love the old NBA Live games from that era. The one year, I think it's 2000, the game is insanely broken for all rookies. For whatever reason, all rookies, no matter when they were drafted, are absolutely amazing.

I remember playing a season with the Hawks, and I put in their scrubs for garbage time and I found out that Roshawn McLeod (or however you spell it) literally cannot be stopped. I went around the league and found that as long as you were a rookie, you could hit almost all of your threes if you were a G-SF or you could dunk over anyone if you were a PF-C.

If you ever get an XBox, NBA Inside Drive is a hell of a game. At least if you like high scoring arcade style dunkfests (and I do). Plus it has great graphics for the year it came out, they nail guys faces like Jordan and Pippen perfectly. The closest thing I might compare Inside Drive to would probably be NBA Live 2003, when using Action Cam. It reminds me of a 3D version of NBA Jam, except without 20-foot dunks, cheesy sound effects and the "on fire" thing. It is a freaking steal for 99 cents at Gamestop. Literally a no-brainer if someone is a serious NBA fan and has an XBox.

You could also say the 2002-2003 Inside Drive games are more of a loose, less constricted and faster version of the NBA 2K2 and 2K3 years. Somebody who enjoys the run-and-gun Phoenix Suns offense of the last few years and wanted a game like that (scoring in seven seconds or less), they'd do well to get ahold of Inside Drive and make sure they switch the camera to Action Cam.

The only real flaws is that it can be a little easy to drive to the basket, shooting percentages are higher than real basketball and if you aren't careful you can rack up a lot of fouls since the refs are very strict about reaching in for a steal on the default settings (but this can be changed with gameplay sliders).

Roshawn McLeod? I know him. I remember "bit" players over the years for the Celtics like him, Chucky Atkins and Walter McCarty. He (McLeod) is a Celtic in the 2002-2003 NBA games including Live, 2K and Inside Drive. McLeod isn't a world beater in those games like he is yours but he is a pretty dependable bench player on every Celtics team I had him on (I've used "default" Celtic rosters before in NBA 2K2, NBA Live 2002 and Konami's NBA Starting Five).

[kainemaxwell]

Lost Montana halfway through a season in Tecmo Super Bowl. Still made a 16-0 season with Young though.

[bangtango]

Lost Montana halfway through a season in Tecmo Super Bowl. Still made a 16-0 season with Young though.

Aside from the 16-0 thing, that sounds like a few of the 49'ers seasons in real life.

[ryborg]

I do play all of my own games, including preseason. It means that getting through multiple seasons can take awhile, especially if I have a few Franchises I am playing through simultaneously but I manage........

Ah ok, so we're pretty much comparing apples to oranges at this point. I've played enough NFL/NBA/NHL games where I can easily win at the highest CPU level, which is why I find the GM aspect of the franchise modes more interesting. Not to mention I don't have anywhere near enough time to play all 82 or 16+ games. For example, in football, I can generally play one Madden/NFL2KX game and sim one full season/off-season in one sitting, whereas playing AND GMing one season could take real-time weeks for me.

Yeah of course it's fun to fantasy draft all of your favorite first round busts and play them to the Super Bowl, but to me, simming the franchise mode and getting through 30 years in a few weeks is much more involved and interesting.

[Daltone]

In one of the old Premier Manager games (I forget which year) I was playing as local team Tranmere when star striker John Aldridge, the club's top scorer for the season, suffered a sprained wrist. Usually this would mean he'd be out for about a week. He promptly announced his retirement to set up a bar in the Carribean. The bastard.

[bangtango]

Ah ok, so we're pretty much comparing apples to oranges at this point. I've played enough NFL/NBA/NHL games where I can easily win at the highest CPU level, which is why I find the GM aspect of the franchise modes more interesting. Not to mention I don't have anywhere near enough time to play all 82 or 16+ games. For example, in football, I can generally play one Madden/NFL2KX game and sim one full season/off-season in one sitting, whereas playing AND GMing one season could take real-time weeks for me.

Yeah of course it's fun to fantasy draft all of your favorite first round busts and play them to the Super Bowl, but to me, simming the franchise mode and getting through 30 years in a few weeks is much more involved and interesting.

Definitely apples and oranges there. Simming a lot of the games would make me feel too detached from the team I've built. But I can respect your preferences for the GM side of things.

To me, my favorite part of any game I play is the on-the-field/court stuff. As a result, I'd enjoy playing a lot of the games I do even if they didn't have extensive franchise modes. Of course they do make things a lot more interesting.

I'm certainly open to the idea of simming full seasons and might give it a try sometime when I start up another Madden franchise. With that said, to what extent do you sim offseason stuff? In your case, do you let the computer handle free agents, the draft, etc. or is this something you handle on your own?

[ryborg]

With that said, to what extent do you sim offseason stuff? In your case, do you let the computer handle free agents, the draft, etc. or is this something you handle on your own?

Oh god no, I don't let the CPU handle anything. I control everything myself. The only problem is that there's usually something buggy for each game series that makes it a little annoying.

For example, in either Madden 07 or 08 (I can't remember which), if another team makes an offer to your head coach and he accepts, one of your assistant coaches will automatically be upgraded to head coach with a three-year contract you did not negotiate.

In one recent sim, it was the year 2017 or something and I had recently hired Sebastian Janikowski to be my special teams coach. I always hire someone funny/useless for STC because it's so inessential in terms of the game. Well, this year, someone made an obscene offer to my current head coach, and my defensive and offensive coordinators just had their contracts expire, so Sea Bass automatically got upgraded to head coach and got an automatic 800% pay raise. Um, not good. The only way out was to fire him immediately, pay him the total of the contract, and lose him forever. Weak.

[bangtango]

Oh god no, I don't let the CPU handle anything. I control everything myself. The only problem is that there's usually something buggy for each game series that makes it a little annoying.

For example, in either Madden 07 or 08 (I can't remember which), if another team makes an offer to your head coach and he accepts, one of your assistant coaches will automatically be upgraded to head coach with a three-year contract you did not negotiate.

In one recent sim, it was the year 2017 or something and I had recently hired Sebastian Janikowski to be my special teams coach. I always hire someone funny/useless for STC because it's so inessential in terms of the game. Well, this year, someone made an obscene offer to my current head coach, and my defensive and offensive coordinators just had their contracts expire, so Sea Bass automatically got upgraded to head coach and got an automatic 800% pay raise. Um, not good. The only way out was to fire him immediately, pay him the total of the contract, and lose him forever. Weak.

The thing I dislike most about a lot of the Madden games revolves around the glaring lack of trades between computer controlled teams. Teams have guys on the trading block all season and they never go anywhere unless you deal for them yourself. I've seen high rated guys at quarterback like Chad Pennington, Jake Delhomme, Jake Plummer, Rex Grossman, etc. (depending on the year) sit on the block all season because they lost a starting job yet 6-8 computer teams who desperately need good quarterbacks to help them make the playoffs don't ever get a crack at them. Could say the same damn thing with any skill position in the game.

It drives me crazy because the computer does very little to "better" itself during the season aside from signing street free agents here and there. Maybe it is vastly different if you sim 100% of the season, but this is based on my experience manually playing some 20-24 games (including preseason and any playoff runs) from start to finish. I guess that is a drawback of the computer doing its own fantasy draft but it is inexcusable that computer controlled teams don't trade more aggressively with one another in some of the Madden games from the past several years.

Keep in mind I'm still playing Madden 08 and 09 on last gen systems so I'd hope this was corrected on PS3 or 360 versions but obviously I wouldn't know, since I don't own PS3 or 360 and I haven't got a lot of interest in buying a Wii to play Madden.

Plus I complained about this in length earlier but it aggravates me when the computer will stick a punter in the game at quarterback after the second stringer goes down even though there is a third and fourth string quarterback on the roster.

Little things like that annoy me.