NFL Head Coach

So, as promised, I'm presenting my unofficial review of EA Sports' latest offering, NFL Head Coach. As I said before, if you enjoy Owner Mode in the Madden series, you'll probably like NFL Head Coach.

The game starts with the premise that you are one of Pittsburgh's coordinators, either offensive or defensive, and you're now on the free agent market. You decide on your offensive and defensive styles, conduct an interview with a team, and then the job offers come in. Whichever team you interview with will offer you a job, as will three or four other teams. Each team will offer you a certain amount of money, but will also have certain expectations. Better teams will expect you to get to the playoffs, or even a specific round, while other teams will want you to win a certain number of games. Other objectives could include drafting a marquee player, ranking in the top 8 in certain offensive and defensive categories or others.

Once you've signed with a particular team, you'll first hire and fire your assistant coaches. You start with a full coaching roster, but you can fire the ones you don't want, and hire new ones. No matter what you do, at least one of them is going to cop some major attitude during the season, and will probably quit during a staff meeting. The only coaching staff member you have no control of is the Scouting Director.

Once you've got your roster, you'll have to deal with your restricted free agents. Then the draft. Then your unrestricted free agents. Pretty much the way things go in the regular offseason. During each part, you'll have particular goals you'll have to achieve, like re-signing certain players, drafting certain positions, and making sure you have the minimum number of players at each position. This also brings me to one of my favorite aspects of the game.

Real Players. Games like Madden and NCAA Football give you the option to create your own player(s). But the game doesn't have any limits, and you can create a player with perfect stats. While I can see the appeal in this, as I've done it myself, its also kind of like cheating. Head Coach offers no such option. You play with real players, warts and all. So those players who only win when they have a team of mutants may not enjoy the game as much. In this game, you stand a good chance of losing, particularly if your players aren't very good.

Once you finally get to training camp is when the fun begins. You'll have to run practices to make sure your players get their skills to their highest possible level. Certain practices will have more impact on a player's individual stats, but won't contribute anything to the teamwork. Other practices will build teamwork, but do nothing for individual stats. The trick is running the right number of the right kind of practices. Preseason is interesting, because you may run into a situation where you don't have time to run enough practices. Or, in the worst possible situation, you won't have time for any practices. Which brings me to one of my complaints about the game.

Scheduling. Each week, you'll have certain scheduled events that you can't change. A meeting with the owner, a staff meeting, scouting meetings and "office hours." The problem is that many of these are pointless. Once you get into the regular season, the owner meeting will just be skipped over. But there it is, on your schedule, taking up two hours you could be using for something else. The same with office hours. These are when you can fiddle with your roster or answer phone calls and read emails. But you can't make phone calls, or do other things. During my preseason I had one period where I had nothing but assigned tasks, meaning that I didn't run a single practice in that time. So shockingly, I wasn't able to meet any of my weekly goals. Which brings me to my next criticism of the game.

Goals. Each week, in preseason and regular season, you have assigned goals. But for some reason, the game doesn't always recognize when you've reached that goal. For example, you will almost certainly be assigned a goal to ensure that your QB is at 100%. So you run the appropriate practices, but the goal isn't met. Then you check your depth chart, and you find that your QB actually IS at 100%. But you have to switch the QB in and out of the depth chart to get the game to recognize that. Its quite exasperating, and if EA hasn't fixed it by the time the next edition comes out, it will be a major flaw that could kill any interest in the game.

Coaching the game is an interesting mix of playcalling, motivation and strategy. During practice, you'll build up certain plays to be money plays, meaning that you'll have a greater chance of success when using them in a game situation. You'll have to call the plays you think will work, depending on down and yardage, etc, etc. But you also have the ability to motivate and strategize with your players. You can strategize during practices, and that strategy should carry through the game. Or you can strategize with a player while the play is going on. For example, if your defense is on the field, once you've called the play, you can turn around and strategize with your offensive players. Its an interesting feature, but it also relates to my other complaint about the game.

Motivation. I understand the need to motivate players. And the dangers inherent in doing so. If you motivate properly, your player will respond well. If you say the wrong thing, the player won't respond well. The key is figuring out what the player needs to hear. The problem lies in the lack of options. When you go to motivate a player, you have two options, one AGGressive, and one PASsive. But sometimes the passive one is really passive aggressive. Sometimes you're just hoping for an 'atta boy' option, but that isn't available.

All in all, NFL Head Coach is a good first effort. There are some things missing, like doctors, trainers and the media. I think a press conference after the game would make it much better, as would be consultations with the medical staff over how best to treat an injured player. Other things need to be fixed, like the goals and the scheduling. But overall, I'm enjoying the game. There are times when I find myself reacting to a great play, cheering for the player as he breaks it out and busts down the field, or swearing at the television over an interception. Which is probably the best sign of how good the game is.