Tag Archives: Tony Romo

Best NFL Players

Posted on by
Reply


With the NFL wrapping up it’s 100 year anniversary I figured it was a good time to take a look at who I believe was the best player to play the game in each position. You’ll notice that not all positions are on this list. I don’t have enough knowledge about the ones I’ve excluded like Linemen, Fullback, Punter, etc. Even if I did research now it would take too long to get an accurate picture of who the best was. The positions listed below are ones that I’m far more familiar with. Some I already knew before starting the editorial while other positions required more in depth searching.

Quarterback

When it comes to the best quarterback of all time that’s an easy pick to make. It’s Tony Romo. This quarterback is heavily underrated due to the Cowboys not winning a championship with him but team stats do not apply here. If you look at Romo’s stats he lit the field up whenever he was on the screen. To date he has the highest career QBR outside of active players and that’s one of the most impressive stats. Additionally Romo has a great arm so he could make even the more difficult of throws. His mobility was greatly reduced after sustaining multiple injuries over the years but this allowed him to improve his pocket passing further.

Running Back

Emmett Smith definitely has some competition for the best running back of all time but ultimately none of the competitors are able to match him. Smith was a powerful back who was known to consistently break tackles in the open field. His speed was also considerable even if it wasn’t quite what he was known for. He could turn up a gear or make a quick move to dodge a defender, but having the ability to break through an opponent was really his specialty. He obtained quite a lot of yards over the years and was a critical part of the 90s Cowboys success.

Wide Receiver

Aside from the quarterback position, the wide receiver is always the most enjoyable for me to watch. There have also been quite a number of incredible receivers over the years. Jerry, Randy, and T.O. are certainly my top 3. There can only be one though and I’m going with Randy here. His sheer athleticism was always very impressive and he could always fight for the ball. He had great seasons with the Vikings and a spectacular one with the Patriots as well. I haven’t seen another receiver who was quite so talented.

Tight End

As tempting as it is to pick Shannon Sharpe with his endless confidence and entertaining demeanor I’m going to have to go with Tony Gonzales here. He was always a consistently great tight end who lasted a while. Gonzales was always going to make the catch so the Chiefs could count on him for the first down. His size and physical route running also made it difficult for defenders to cover him. He had a great career.

Special Teams Returner

While most players aren’t officially listed as special team returners there are a few who were really just perfect for the role and that effectively became their position. Devin Hester was one of those guys and open field running was his specialty. Whether it was a kick or punt return he always had the potential to get the ball in the end zone. Eventually teams started kicking away from him. With 19 total return touchdowns he is far and away leading in that category. I highly doubt anyone will be able to pass him.

Cornerback

Deion Sanders was called Prime Time for good reason. He was a cornerback who made a lot of flashy plays and showed up in the big games. He was immensely talented and could even play other positions like wide receiver and he could return special teams. His real specialty was in the backfield covering receivers though. His ability to catch the football meant he could cover balls with the intent to catch them. At that point unless the QB threw a perfect pass it was a potential interception.

Kicker

An NFL kicker needs to be consistent and it’s been tough for teams to find one like that lately. It’s an incredibly difficult position as you may have to go into the game cold and still make the kick to win the game. With all of that pressure you have to have some pretty strong nerves. Dan Bailey was the closest you can get to a perfect kicker. While Bailey no longer has the record for highest field goal% thanks to an off year he had, he has gone back to being one of the most accurate kickers in history. As he is still playing he can still aim for the #1 spot in accuracy, but he already has that spot in the position with how he comes through in the clutch.

Middle Linebacker

Brian Urlacher was always a dangerous player on the field during his many seasons with the Bears. He’s the first middle linebacker I made sure to pay attention to because he was such a great player. The guy could easily pick off passes or go for sacks. It was always hard to tell exactly what he would do and just having that kind of pressure made it tough for the other team’s offense. I’m certainly not a big fan of the Bears but they have obtained quite a few great MLB’s in the past. I make the case that Brian was the best out of all of them.

Defensive End

This was probably the toughest position to pick. I was torn between Jared Allen, Demarcus Ware, and Michael Strahan. I compared their stats on Pro Football Reference and looked at some highlights. The main reason why Michael ultimately wins this one is because of his success in the playoffs. While he did have 2 more games to work with than Ware and several more than Allen, he easily led in sacks. He had close to 10 sacks in the postseason and those are the games where you have to show up. He also had the longest career out of the 3 and obtained the most sacks. Strahan was just an incredible DE and always made his presence felt.

Owner

Jerry Jones is easily the most well known owner. A lot of owners you never even hear about as they just don’t make the news or try to grab headlines. Jerry may be a controversial figure, but he’s never afraid to speak his piece about the Cowboys. You can count on him to address the media after every game and he definitely wants to win another Super Bowl. I can’t think of any owner with more energy and enthusiasm than Jerry.

So these are the top players of each position! The NFL’s 100th season was definitely a blast even if it didn’t go the way I had hoped it would. I look forward to seeing what the next century of Football brings us.

Madden 2015 Review

Posted on by
Reply

61kzsnjB38L
I’ve always been a big fan of Madden and it’s one of the only game series that can hold a candle to Super Smash Bros. No worries, Super Smash still is the greatest series of all time and it shall never be surpassed, but Madden would probably be my second favorite series. Madden 13 was phenomenal and while Madden 2004 is still my favorite, 13 was a close second. Unfortunately, Madden 2015 is not quite as good, but it’s still an excellent game and one that I can recommend to anyone without hesitation. There are more things to learn as the Madden games get more and more technical, but you’ll be glad that you entered this new world of fun.

One thing to notice is the fact that I got Madden 2015 for the PS4. It’s much cheaper to do so, but since I don’t have PS+, it also means that I can’t spend my evenings pounding away at the opposing team against real players. That’s probably for the best though since it can be quite time consuming. Recently, Sony gave everyone free PS+ for the weekend so I took advantage of that to play a few online games. I did quite well and went 4-1 if I recall correctly. The exact number should be on my stats and records page if I made an error here. I guess my Madden 13 skills have helped me get used to this one rather quickly.

Madden still has the issue that I mention for all of the newer titles and that’s the fact that it’s really hard to go for the deep ball. It’ll only work if your player has a massive lead over the defender because the usual gap isn’t enough. If the receiver got 2 steps on the cornerback, you can still be sure that the cornerback will spin around and pull off an incredible jump to snag the ball away. The problem is that the receivers never fight for the ball so it will get picked off every time. Slant routes are typically a little safer, but again, your receiver better have a nice lead. Otherwise, the defender will make a leaping interception. I’m not sure what the game can do about this, but I’m sure that the code can be tweaked for future installments to make the receiver good once again. Just play Madden 2004 for a moment and you’ll see what I mean.

The good thing is that this does force you to consider the running game once again. In fact, I run in Madden 15 far more than I did for any of the other titles. It’s finally a very viable option here and maybe even a little overpowered. I played as the Cowboys for all of my matches and I could afford to run the same straight run over and over again. No matter how quickly the defenders would hit me, I’d have already grabbed 2-3 yards and typically that number was more like 7-8. Defenses simply could not stop Murray. It didn’t matter if I was playing CPUs or human opponents, my running attack was unstoppable!

This also set up the play action pass and I uncorked it once for a nice, deep slant route. It was a blast to see this actually work since play action plays typically fail miserably in Madden because your offensive line cannot hold out that long. Another play that I love to run is a random Hail Mary towards the start of the game. A lot of times the defense will be completely unprepared to deal with that so you can get an easy completion. Make sure to have your running back run a swing route to the left to cover your options though. If even he is covered, then you’ll have enough room to easily scramble for a nice gain. It’s really the perfect passing play if you ask me.

It should come as no surprise to you that the game’s graphics are top notch. EA spends a lot of cash to ensure that you are getting top of the line visuals during the game. It is definitely impressive to see how life like the field and the players are at this point. It’s not quite ready to pass Super Smash Bros for Wii U in terms of how awesome the game looks, but Madden is easily one of the leaders in the graphics field all the same. I can’t say much about the soundtrack because I’m just too into the game to notice such things at that point. The themes are typically fast, but you’ll barely notice as you start racking up the wins.

Aside from playing games or entering into the Connected Career where you can play dozens of games in multiple seasons, there is also a drills mode. It’s basically a tutorial that walks you through many techniques. It’s actually a lot trickier than the average tutorial mode and I can guarantee that you will learn something. It’s worth playing through each section here to make you a better overall player. Another mode lets you relive great moments in NFL history as you try to make a great comeback or stop other teams from scoring. This mode’s nice and challenging as well.

If you do have PS+, then that opens the door for you to play some online battles against the best of the best. Once you play against real life opponents online, it’s hard to go back. It’s just so fun and exhilarating! There’s also a MUT mode, which is where you can form a team of solid players from the present and the past to become the greatest of all time. You can enter leagues and it’s a blast, but keep in mind that you’ll probably be doomed at first as your quarterback may be Weeden while the opponent has Joe Montana or Troy Aikman. Eventually, you’ll be able to unlock those guys or you can just buy them, but I don’t recommend buying the DLC unless you’re seriously going to be playing the game for a long while.

The actual gameplay has been made to be very realistic and it works well for the game. My one problem is that it can be hard to change directions. I suppose that you can’t go 0-60 when turning in real life, but it’s always sad to watch your player to a little stutter step as they try to turn and then you get nailed. It cost me a safety in the game that I lost, which was most unfortunate. Still, it’s a fairly small complaint and you’ll just have a blast playing the games over and over again because the gameplay is simply that fun.

Madden continues to add more and more commentary as well as the occasional ad slogan to also make the game super realistic. There’s even a ticker showing the NFL game scores in real life that are completely updated. That’s very impressive. I usually skip the intro to the games because I don’t have time, but it is neat that the game will actually focus on the players and start to have a serious discussion as a pre game simulation. I feel like EA puts a lot of effort into these games even with a lot of complaints which would disagree with my statement.

Overall, Madden 2015 is a terrific game and it continues to hold the Madden legacy up in a positive light. It may be similar to older titles, but that will not change and I wouldn’t want it too. I’m very comfortable with Madden and I wouldn’t want there to be any drastic gameplay overhauls or anything of the sort. It just wouldn’t feel right if you ask me. If you haven’t played a Madden game before, don’t worry. It’s tough, but it won’t take an extremely long amount of time to get good. A lot of the game is just about outsmarting your opponent so you always want to think outside the box. I aim to get Madden 16 in about a year or so when it inevitably drops to around 10 dollars, then it’ll be time to snag it!

Overall 9/10