The past couple years, EA Sports (Tiburon if you will) has focused on one aspect of football and vastly improved it. In Madden NFL 2005, it was defense, and in Madden NFL 2006 it was offense. Each of these years also had nifty little slogans to go along with their focuses (eg. 'Fear the D' in 2005 and 'The year of the quarterback' in 2006).

Anyways, I was thinking about it today and I think I thought of two pretty good ideas that EA should use, and I may try emailing some people to get my voice heard (which more likely than not will never make it to anyone who's opinion matters).

Idea 1: "Management Central"
I know the name sounds kind of corny or what have you, but that could easily be fixed. I think having a "management" mode would be AMAZING for Madden, if not in 2007, maybe even 2008. In Management mode (which would serve as another gameplay option like Franchise and Superstar), you could choose to fill the role of an NFL coach, coordinator or general manager, or maybe starting as a coach of some kind (offensive line, etc) and working your way up the chain to become a GM.

Your duties as a coach would depend on what kind of coach you are (eg Offensive Line, Quarterbacks Coach, etc) you would go through each week and instuct practices, have team meetings, give pep talks, etc., and come gametime, put the headset on and grab the clipboard. Once you are a head coach, it would be great if they showed a "first-person" coach camera where you can distinct that you are wearing a headset and pick plays from the clipboard. Communication would be the key here, as your offensive/defensive coordinators would be breaking down situations for you and giving you advice/stats throughout the game to help you out.

Your duties as an offensive/defensive coordinators would be viewing game film of your upcoming opponent and figuring out ways to stop/dominate them. Also, creating plays/schemes could be a big part of the coordinator job. During the games, you can be viewing replays and giving the head coach information and helping him make the playcalls.

As a General Manager (if you can make it that far wink.gif), your job would be keeping players happy, getting rid of the ones who aren't (but not TO) and bringing in new guys to strive towards the team goal: a superbowl. Negotiations and socialization would be the key focus for this job.

Idea 2: Teamwork Wins Games
Again, I know, very terrible name, but I don't do creative names, I do ideas wink.gif. Anyways, EA could vocus alot more on Co-operative play. They could actually mix this idea in with my IDEA 1 and let one person be the coach and one be the coordinator!! How cool would that be? Anyways, let two players perform on the Training camps before the season on franchise, one being the halfback and one being the fullback for example. Also, let the two players switch who is quarterback or who calls plays if they would like.

I guess I just like playing co-operative games, I don't know. Does anyone else think this one is good, because I don't care of anyone's opinion on the first one, I KNOW it would be awesome. I have made fun of and tormented people who do "COACH MODE" on Madden for years (well not that bad smile.gif), but I know for a fact I would play the hell out of it!!

MrOJ21 welcomes feedback on these ideas. Post your comments on our forums.