I’m primarily a sports gamer. I play sports video games for the experience in the front office, which I would deem to be anywhere from the owner to the head coach, just as much as I do for the experience on the field. With the NFL combine just around corner, and the draft “experts’” prognostications in full swing, I’d like to compare how Madden 07 handles the NFL draft versus my perceptions about the real thing.

For the uninitiated, to help teams decide whom they’d like to draft, there are a couple of different vehicles available beyond watching game tape and scouting players in person. The first of which is the Senior Bowl, where college all-stars are invited to ply their trade in front of coaches and staff for a full week of practice, and then to play an all-star game on the weekend. The second vehicle teams use to evaluate players is the NFL combine. The top 300 or so players in college football are invited to participate. Each player is measured for height and weight, and asked to participate in several speed, strength, and agility drills. Medical personal also thoroughly evaluate each player, and teams have the opportunity to give in-depth interviews to whomever they like. Lastly, each player at the combine takes a mental aptitude test, and the results are made available to all teams.

I have not been privy to the activities inside an NFL front office. But, fortunately for my comparison, author John Feinstein has. In his book, Next Man Up, John shadows the Baltimore Ravens’ front office for an entire season. In regard to the draft, his book indicates that the Ravens have several scouts, and that they have their top 150 players ranked, and ranked by position. They also have a primary draft board of around 200 players, and a secondary board of around 400 players – all of which they’ve scouted. Each player is evaluated on an 8.0 scale. It is also understood that the coaches offer input from their player evaluations, that they have all of the pertinent information from the NFL combine, and that they have reports on the players that participated in the Senior Bowl.

Madden 07 allows you to actually play in a college all-star game (similar to the Senior Bowl) with the top players from the draft class, and provides combine information (40 yard dash time, bench press reps with 225 lbs., etc.) for all 300 or so theoretical combine participants. Teams will actually draft just over 250 players, so the draft pool is adequate. That’s pretty much where the similarities end, though.

In Madden 07, beyond the combine information, no other information is available on any prospect. You get the opportunity to "scout" eight times, which could include multiple times on a single prospect, or scout one area for up to eight prospects. The "scouting" consists of participating in a position-specific training camp drill, and based upon your performance, you could earn information about one or two ratings for the player. If you don't meet a certain score, you don't get any additional information.

My problem with this set up is twofold: first of all, based upon the information from the combine, and the amount of scouting done for players from major Division I colleges, we should know some ratings up front; secondly, I don't think scouts in the NFL have to actually participate in a drill and perform at a certain level in order to learn information about a player! If I know a player's 40-yard dash time, why don't I know his speed rating? If I know his shuttle time, why don't I know his agility? And certainly, if scouts have seen the player in person and on video (hypothetically in terms of the game, of course), why don't I know some of the position-specific ratings for that player? I know what EA is trying to do here, which is keeping it a player's game, and trying to simulate the "crapshoot" aspect of drafting prospects. However, it's my opinion that it's not the evaluation of a player that's the greatest variable, it's his development! EA should move some of the unknown and unpredictability to that phase of the game, as opposed to hiding information that is readily available to teams in the NFL draft in the real world.

For example, let's take a look at Calvin Johnson, one of the top draft prospects overall, and the top receiver in the draft this season. Based on the video evidence, the coaches' ability to evaluate him at the Senior Bowl, and scouting reports, I guarantee that teams are able to rate his catching ability. In Madden, that's not the case. I'd have to "scout" him, participate in a drill, and hit a certain score to learn his "hands" rating. Basic information, like a receiver's ability to catch the ball, should be available as empirical evidence, at least certainly for the top players at that position, who have had a lot of real-world exposure. I could see limiting that kind of information on a player out of Division III Capital University in Ohio, but for a big-time player from a major college? No way. The draft is about information, and Madden 07 simply doesn't provide enough of it for the gamer. Don't misunderstand me; I don't think we should know everything about a player. In Calvin's case, one of the ratings you can uncover is his ability to return kicks. Since he didn't do that in college, it would make sense to me that you would need to spend one of your scouting points to evaluate his ability to do something different.