courtesy Getty Images
The Saints won the Super Bowl and if I didn't know better, I'd think I was watching a video game of football. Sean Payton took some cues from my Madden playbook: he decided to do an onside kick when he really shouldn't have, he went for it on forth and goal (with a run play no less) and he went for the good old two pointer. In all fairness, the two point conversion was legitimate and any coach would have done it there. Plus the catch was spectacular.
The onside kick was stupid insane. I immediately thought back to this year's BCS championship and Nick Saban's decision to go for a fake punt in the first quarter. Well that decision didn't backfire and neither did Payton's. As an added bonus, Payton's decision to take the onside kick actually resulted in the Saints gaining (maintaining?) possession. At that point, I was vouching for the Saint's kicker to get the MVP. Two 40-plus yard field goals and then a successful onside kick? Best kicker ever.
An onside kick had never been done before in the Superbowl before the 4th quarter. What was the inspiration? Madden.
It's not as crazy as you might think. As Madden games capture more and more of the game of football, the games also gain more and more of a foothold in football culture. I'm sure the vast majority of players in the NFL play Madden. In a Madden game, you can do anything you can do in a real game of football, even if you shouldn't. Case in point: take an onside kick whenever you are kicking off. It's so tempting that anyone who has played the game has fell victim to a random onside kick before. And that's just what happened to the Colts Sunday. Payton didn't know it would work, but hey why not give it a shot?
Will we see more of this 'Madden" behavior in the future? We already are. Consider the Broncos' Brandon Stokley and his game winning catch in week one against the Bengals. The catch was abnormal, but so was Stokley running across the field right next to the goal line to burn off some extra time. Don't tell me you've never done that in Madden. Wired had a great article talking about this and some other instances of video game behavior in the NFL.
Madden is permanently a part of the football culture. Madden predicts (correctly) the Super Bowl and we hear about on Sportscenter. The cover curse is ingrained into the mythos of modern day football. This year we even get to pick the cover athlete. Please don't pick Brees. I need him for Fantasy Football.
Before Sunday, we had to hear a lot about the methodology of the Colts and Peyton Manning. It was all for naught. Football is just about x's and o's. It's about unpredictability and impossible athletic plays. It's a lot like Madden.
No comments:
Post a Comment