Skip to main content

Are you ready for some (pixelated) football?



I got the old Playstation (first edition) out of the closet and Owen and I have been playing Madden '99 (yes, as in 1999). I've been letting Owen play the AFC Allstars and I've been the pre-Warner Rams.

The graphics are pretty simple, but the game is still a lot of fun to play. Today, Owen beat me 35-28. On one of the plays the prerecorded John Madden remarked: "To effectively stop the running back you have to hit him on his side of the line of scrimmage." On a separate play, after a pass was broken up, he had this wisdom to offer: "To break up the pass you have to stop the ball from ever getting to the receiver."

Funny, I don't remember Madden being that insightful in real life.

Other highlights: Owen had no pass attempts but ran the ball 50 times for 427 yards with Terrell Davis setting the all-time NFL single-game rushing record.

Comments

Amy P said…
I'm going to guess that the NFC Allstars are the blue team, right?
JohnJohn said…
Doh! I meant the AFC Allstars (I changed it just now). Interestingly enough it's the RED team! Owen is branching out in his color preferences for sports teams.
mama mia said…
Already corrupting that boy with football! Just think how "eat up with it" he'd be if he lived in Texas!
Perhaps, Owen should try play-action, now that he has you thinking run...

Popular posts from this blog

A view from your shut down

The Daily Dish has been posting reader emails reporting on their " view from the shutdown ." If you think this doesn't affect you, or if you know all too well how bad this is, take a look at the growing collection of poignant stories. No one is in this alone except for the nutjobs in the House. I decided to email Andrew with my own view. I plan to send a similar letter to my congressperson. Dear Andrew, I am a professor of astronomy at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). The CfA houses one of the largest, if not the largest collection of PhD astronomers in the United States, with over 300 professional astronomers and roughly 100 doctoral and predoctoral students on a small campus a few blocks west of Harvard Yard. Under the umbrella of the CfA are about 20 Harvard astronomy professors, and 50 tenure-track Smithsonian researchers. A large fraction of the latter are civil servants currently on furlough and unable to come to work. In total, 147 FTEs...

The Long Con

Hiding in Plain Sight ESPN has a series of sports documentaries called 30 For 30. One of my favorites is called Broke  which is about how professional athletes often make tens of millions of dollars in their careers yet retire with nothing. One of the major "leaks" turns out to be con artists, who lure athletes into elaborate real estate schemes or business ventures. This naturally raises the question: In a tightly-knit social structure that is a sports team, how can con artists operate so effectively and extensively? The answer is quite simple: very few people taken in by con artists ever tell anyone what happened. Thus, con artists can operate out in the open with little fear of consequences because they are shielded by the collective silence of their victims. I can empathize with this. I've lost money in two different con schemes. One was when I was in college, and I received a phone call that I had won an all-expenses-paid trip to the Bahamas. All I needed to d...

back-talk begins

me: "owen, come here. it's time to get a new diaper" him, sprinting down the hall with no pants on: "forget about it!" he's quoting benny the rabbit, a short-lived sesame street character who happens to be in his favorite "count with me" video. i'm turning my head, trying not to let him see me laugh, because his use and tone with the phrase are so spot-on.