Let’s get one thing out of the way right off the bat: NFL Head Coach 09 is nothing at all like the terrible version that EA Sports released back in the summer of 2006. You absolutely cannot bias yourself against the game based on its previous attempt. This new version has an improved interface, gameplay, and focus and while it’s nowhere near perfect and has some highly irritating issues attached to it, it is one of the most important high profile sports games releases in years.

Fans of hardcore text based simulations often dream of playing a deep stat minded football game with first rate ‘next gen’ visuals. It’s been the undiscoverable grail of sim fans for years. You have to go back to games like the Front Page Sports Football series from Sierra (which reached its zenith on the mid 1990s) to find something that tried to be a serious sim as well as a graphics-based game.

Head Coach 09 is the next logical step. The game is jam packed with data, as well as things to do. There’s never a dull moment in Head Coach. You’re always coaching a game, setting a practice schedule, scouting players for the draft, working trade deals, signing free agents, making roster cuts—something is always keeping you busy be it during the season or during the summer doledrums.

In many ways this is like playing a hard-line text game like Front Office Football; the most obvious difference being that Head Coach has graphics that look like Madden 08 and an interface that while vastly better than the old game, would still benefit greatly by being ported to the PC. Playing a game like this with an Xbox 360 controller is a pain, especially if you’re used to zipping around screens in text games via a mouse. Still, it’s as good as can be expected considering the platform.

That said, coaching the games, for the most part, is packed with tension, drama and a modicum of realism. A few gripes keep it from being an elite on the field sim, but this is a huge first step and one that I hope EA continues to take with future editions.