He’s one of the oldest members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. However, when it comes to revolutionary ideas, John Madden is way ahead of the pack.
Madden, who gained additional fame and popularity after winning Super Bowls by having the best sportscasting career in NFL history and attaching his name to the super-popular EA Sports NFL video game, thinks there could be a link between gaming and success on the gridiron.
In an interview with ESPN, Madden said that if he were coaching today, he would hire gamers to help his team prep for upcoming opponents.
“I would have a couple of young guys that are good, good Madden players, and hire them and put them on my staff,” Madden explained. “And each week I would have them play our opponent. If the Raiders are playing Kansas City, I’d have one of them be the Raiders and one of them be Kansas City. And then I would run our players against their defenses and their defenses against our players. And I’d have them just check that out and then write up — this was good, this was bad, had trouble here and trouble there. I don’t know how much I would use it, but that’s what I would do.”
The idea has merit.
The modern Madden games account for the physical and skill attributes of each individual player. The games also account for the tendencies of coaches and teams. Having knowledge of how your gameplan fared against a team before you actually play them would certainly be useful.
NFL teams may want to consider going to EA and getting the company to develop an NFL-specific game that even more accurately accounts for team tendencies and player characteristics. Though, if the military can use simulators and games to help troops prep for combat, why can’t the NFL?