FANTASY FOOTBALL OR MADDEN?

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"I'm telling you, John, fantasy is the way to go!"

[Ed.'s Note: We've been bringing you Madden content all week. But if you missed anything, you can check it all out right here.]

With Madden NFL 09 set to drop this Tuesday, and thousands of fantasy football drafts set to kick off around the same time, we thought we'd try to decide which of the football games reigns supreme. We brought in Mag fantasy editor Scott Burton and Mag Gamer columnist Jon Robinson to settle this debate once and for all.

KICKOFF

ROBINSON:
Playing football video games, I've won the Super Bowl as Quincy Carter, scored so many touchdowns as Bo Jackson that my friends banned the Raiders in Tecmo Bowl and thrown way too many interceptions as Daunte Culpepper in Madden just so I can Hit Stick the defensive back as he tries for the pick-six. And that's the thing about football video games that makes them so exhilarating—I'm in control. If I want to hand the ball to Adrian Peterson 40 times a game, there's nobody stopping me (unless Purple Jesus breaks a leg from over use, of course). If the 49ers have no chance in real life, I can still make them a contender in Madden thanks to my incredibly fast fingers. Fantasy football is all about waiting for other people to do your dirty work. I prefer to do the dirty work myself.

Just look at Madden NFL 09 for a second. You can control every aspect of your team, from roster changes to relocating your franchise to Mexico. You can actually design your own plays and add them to your playbook using EA Sports' head coaching simulator, NFL Head Coach 09. And if fantasy is your thing, EA Sports enables you to import your fantasy team into Madden 09 and play against the other teams in your league. Notice I said play, not watch.

You just can't beat what football video games have to offer.

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Holy cow!

BURTON:
I have a confession to make, a lurid, dirty little confession. But before I make this confession, I need to establish something: I am a true, blue-blooded Chicago Cubs fan. As in, I named my cat after Cedric Landrum, pinch-runner extraordinaire. As in, I could write the biography of Laddie Renfroe (Chapter 1: How An Obscure Cubs Reliever Ruined a Young Boy's Life Through His Gross Incompetence.). As in, when the Cubs win the World Series this year (wait, did I say when?), I will blubber and blubber good.

Now, let me tell you about another team I love: The Holy Cows. Who are the Holy Cows, you ask? The Holy Cows are my fantasy baseball team. We are making a run for first place in our league thanks to some shrewd managerial moves on my part, and in spite of some other, less shrewd moves on my part (like trading for Kosuke Fukodome last month, shortly before his tailspin. That's what you get for mixing business with pleasure). Anyway, I've been running the Holy Cows for over a decade now, and we've never finished in first. And so here comes the confession …

If you put a shook-up can of Old Style to my head right now, I'd tell you I'd rather see the Holy Cows win it all than the Cubs.

Wow. I can't believe I just wrote that. This is sauch a shattering, soul-redefining truth, in fact, that I've actually never admitted it to anyone, ever. But I do so now, because I offer it as Exhibit A on why fantasy is the greatest game on earth. It changes who you are as a sports fan.

I mean, seriously—does Madden have that kind of juju?

FIRST HALF

ROBINSON:
As a baseball fan who grew up idolizing Bob Dernier, I feel your Cubs pain. What I'm not feeling is your obsession with fantasy sports, especially when it comes to football, a system that is incredibly flawed.

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Chris Redman, our favorite fantasy guilty pleasure.

I admit, I play fantasy football every season, but I'm never more frustrated then when I'm playing in the championship game. It's always during one of the last two weeks of the season, and chances are, if you're winning your league on the strength of a stud QB headed for the actual playoffs, his coach will sit him for your Big Game.

So here I am, destroying my friends by an average of 20 points, when all of a sudden, I'm playing in the championship with Chris Redman under center because Peyton Manning needs a breather. It's a crime that I'm playing Redman as my quarterback, but it's an even bigger crime that he went on to throw four TDs to help me take home the championship. When you're winning your league because of some Kentucky insurance salesman who wasn't even in the NFL for most of the season, it's not something to feel proud about.

At least in Madden, I'm not only the coach, I'm the player, so if I go on to win the Madden Super Bowl with a guy like Chris Redman, it's because of my skills on the sticks, not dumb luck. I can feel proud about that any day. In fact, I love winning with bad players in Madden, that's a real test of talent.

BURTON:
You have your bitter memories about fantasy football, I have mine about Madden. The year was 1995. I was a college junior, living with five other guys in an off-campus dump. We played a lot of Sega hockey, and just a little bit of Madden. I was an awful player, terminally confused by all the formations and button combinations, but one afternoon, I was actually clinging to a late lead over one of my housemates. Then, on the last play in the game, this housemate threw a diabolical screen pass—a screen pass that we had banned because it was unstoppable due to a glitch in the game (or perhaps our own ineptitude). My housemate scored because of this screen pass, and we got into a huge argument. One thing lead to another, and my housemate—who outweighed me by about 150 pounds—picked me up and threw me halfway across our living room into some bicycles. It hurt very badly. The losing and the bicycle toss.

Anyhow … Have they fixed that glitch? I wouldn't know because I haven't played Madden since that fateful day. I'm too busy winning crazy loot in fantasy football.

Unlike fantasy baseball, I've actually won fantasy football leagues. And while I admit luck had a lot to do with it, there is skill involved. I won my league this year because I played the waiver-wire like Rodney Dillard plays the banjo: pick, pick, pick, gem (Ryan Grant) after gem (Justin Fargas).

And therein lies the big difference between fantasy and Madden: Fantasy is tethered to the real world. I mean, NFL Sunday has huge meaning to us fantasy owners. Every carry matters, and it's a shared experience. Not so with Madden.

Or am I missing something?

SECOND HALF

ROBINSON:
Don't blame the game because your Madden success rate is worse that Michael Vick's chances at PETA single's night. A lot has changed in the world of video games since 1995. That's back when John Madden yelled "Boom!" on the Genesis, and injured players were carried out on that awesome little ambulance that would inadvertently run over your entire team to help that poor quarterback with a pulled hamstring.

Now, Madden is a game grounded in reality. But the results are still up to you. You have an active role in winning or losing (or in your case, getting chucked across the room). And in a lot of ways, that's better than not only fantasy football, but the real NFL, too. Sure, it's fun to watch Devin Hester return a punt for a touchdown. But it's even more fun when it's you who returns the punt 80 yards with the guy controlling the defense sitting right next to you as you talk junk.

Also, in a lot of cases, you can collect more cash in a single game than is won in a full fantasy season. Daunte Culpepper confessed winning and losing $15,000 a game, and he's not the only one. Gamers can win $100,000 in the official EA Sports Madden Challenge, and there are underground Madden tournaments taking place all over the country. I've even heard rumors of real NFL players bankrolling some of these elite underground gamers in high stakes Madden contests with thousands on the line.

How simply sitting around on Sunday and adding up stats is better, I just don't see it.

And yes, they fixed that glitch.

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Ah, the multi-purpose back. How we love thee.

BURTON:
So that's how you see fantasy, huh? Weekly math homework? How terribly reductive. There's so much more to it than that: the scouting, the strategizing, the nefarious plotting to fleece Captain Numbnuts out of Adrian Peterson. And my goodness, there's fantasy draft day. Let's talk about fatnasy draft day, when it's your first turn on the clock, and all your research, your instincts, your football IQ, converge at that moment as you call out the name of your franchise player through a mouthful of chips, wings and Miller High Life.

"Brfprain Wrfpbropfk," you say.

And everyone knows exactly who you mean, because they were hoping he'd fall to them later in the first, and they nod as if you've just distilled the meaning of life, and you feel high and giddy and optimistic, like Bill Polian must have felt when he called in Peyton's name in the 1998 draft.

Does Madden have anything that compares to this? Hmm. I don't think waiting three hours in line at the Best Buy on release day quite does it.

And here's the double doozy. Every NFL Sunday is as glorious as fantasy draft day. Because you are invested, emotionally and financially, in your players, like they are children, like they are stock. And when your stock scores a touchdown, or breaks a leg, it's like you've scored a touchdown or broken a leg. You feel it.

Ever see those videos of the faithful speaking in tongues, wailing then fainting, because they've been touched? That's what it's like to be at a bar full of fantasy owners on a Sunday afternoon--it's a congregation of football freaks, yelling at the TV screen, pleading, cajoling, as if their chock were fueled by the power of their words. It's totally ridiculous, and very freaky, but if you're part of it, it's a little bit, well, euphoric—collective euphoria! And I'm sorry for being so darn overwraught, but I'm telling you, I love this game. Because it's not fantasy. It's life.

Okay, scratch that last part. I don't even know what that means. Just feeling the spirit is all.

FINAL SECONDS

BURTON:
So in one corner, we have a game you play with your brain. In the other, we have a game you play with your thumbs. Does that about cover it?

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Jaws doesn't mess around in the film room.

Sorry. Cheap shot. Let me make it for it by volunteering this: I am constantly blown away by the football IQ of Madden owners, the degree to which they've memorized and mastered the X's and O's. You people are hardcore. Seriously, I would love it if we could put a Maddenite in a film room with Ron Jaworksi, then put a random page from a random NFL team's playbook on the screen, and see who could identify which team that play belonged to first. It'd be a great contest. And while I love my fellow fantasy freaks, I'm telling you, we're not about to outsmart Jaws when it comes to anything to do with football.

But that's okay. In a few weeks, I've got my draft coming up. I'm the defending champion. For winning my league, I took home $400 and a warped, beat-up trophy we pass around from year to year. Now, I'm not crazy. The $400 meant a lot more to me that the trophy. But I'm bringing that trophy to our draft, and I'm going to relish using it as a paperweight for my rankings, and asking my rivals if they would like to touch it, or to take a photo of them holding it, or to maybe even take it home for day so that they can know what it's like, if only for a moment, to be as awesome as me. I'll pretend to accidentally knock it over, and start to pretend cry, and I'll pick up my trophy and cradle it like a baby, and tell it everything will be alright, as the other owners roll their eyes and wonder what the hell is wrong with me (while secretly wishing, of course, that this baby was their baby). Now that's worth $400.

And it's certainly worth more than whatever Madden costs these days.

ROBINSON:
I think you might be missing the point when it comes to Madden. Over the last 20 years, the title has become more than just a game, it's a pop culture phenomenon. And, like you said, the game is making fans smarter about everything from zone blitzes to the Cover 2, and that translates into smarter fans on Sunday.

Now, I admit, I play fantasy football, and I love the live draft atmosphere. But to me, it's all downhill from there. Winning a fantasy game just because I picked a lineup that scores 2 points more than my opponent, whose tight end was a last second scratch, just doesn't give me much of a thrill (I think of it more as a way to waste time while I'm supposed to be at work). Sitting next to my opponent and talking junk for an hour as we battle at Madden, though, that's about raw emotion (and I have a closet full of broken controllers to prove it). That's what playing Madden is all about, that head-to-head competition. That ability to say I'm better than you and here is the score to prove it. And it's something I really look forward to every August, in a lot of ways, more than the real season itself.

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