Well here we are again but this time with a twist. It’s a new NFL game from EA but without the name Madden anywhere in the title. No, big Madden hasn’t been kicked to the curb or to the nearest steakhouse. The NFL portfolio for EA has now been expanded to include a coaching simulation game, NFL Head Coach. Now you get to experience the grueling and overlooked side of being a head coach, the desk job. Yes, you read that correctly, the desk job.

It seems that all of those NFL Films documentaries that we’ve watched over the years didn’t tell the true story of being a head coach in the NFL. It seems, at least from playing NFL Head Coach, that a coach spends most of the year tied to his desk designing plays, correcting the depth chart, in trade talks with other teams and balancing the team’s salary cap. Some of these tasks you controlled in Madden’s franchise mode but in NFL Head Coach the franchise modes are strictly from the head coach’s point of view. It’s up to you to lead your team to glory by being successful and winning. It’s also the ultimate responsibility for any job, doing well enough to keep your job.

The game starts off immediately after this year’s Super Bowl. You are the star assistant coach/coordinator that helped lead the team to victory, which means you’re the next candidate for a head coaching spot. The game then offers you several different coaching jobs with a variety of contract lengths and monetary value. All of the vacancies from this year’s post season where available along with a few surprises. I was shocked to find my Miami Dolphins were still looking for a head coach after Nick Sabin finished the season strong with six straight victories in a row. But what’s the point of having a NFL Head Coach game if you can’t coach your favorite team?

Well, I had to turn down the Miami job simply because other teams were in a better position in regards to their salary cap.  I selected to coach for the St. Louis Rams with a contract that only gave me two years but with plenty of cap room to make some big pick-ups in the off-season. I knew the team still had a good-to-great QB, a solid RB (with a potential Hall of Fame backup), and a pair of future Hall of Fame Wide Receivers just on the offense. The defense was in a good position as well with some top-notch players. But little did I know that a clunky interface would cause me headaches in getting the right players and building a winning team.

In the process of running your team you’re given a variety of tasks from the team’s owner that should be accomplished during certain parts of the post/pre-season. The tasks vary from hiring coordinators and position coaches to re-signing key players to your rosters.  The game’s interface is where NFL Head Coach fumbles on the 1-yard line before scoring a game-winning touchdown. The game limits you to performing only certain tasks during certain times in the game based upon what is listed on the games built-in calendar. For example you cannot sign a free agent and then update your depth chart to include the new player. The game restricts you from, what I would call, multitasking a variety of tasks at the same time.

If I’m the head coach why shouldn’t I be able to perform a variety of tasks when I want? I understand that the NFL has certain time periods that have to be respected, such as the free agency period, but why should the game limit me to just one task at a time? The only way around this limitation is the ability to move tasks around in your calendar. If you haven’t completed a task yet, then you can swap that task out with another future task. But the game still limits you to only performing those specific tasks during that time.  What I found myself doing was just skipping tasks that I thought were not as important as signing or trading for new players. I would swap out the times on the calendar but when I still had the unnecessary tasks to complete I would just skip to the next period. Thankfully the game didn’t limit this option.

Another issue with the interface had to due with signing and trading players. The game does not do a good job of notifying you of the number of players on your roster. The only place I could find a summary of players on my roster was by trying to perform a trade with another team. This didn’t help me in keeping roster spots open that I would need later after the NFL Draft. I made the mistake of signing as many players as possible and then having to cut players later just to sign the rookies I drafted. The game should have included a roster summary count that you could see at all times.

Trading players is just as cumbersome because the game doesn’t notify you of which teams you have trade offers from when you enter the trade option screen. All of your trade notifications are on the game’s built-in e-mail system, which is not linked to the trade option screen. Once you’ve received an e-mail from a GM offering a trade you then have to enter the trade option screen and select the team that initiated the offer. The game doesn’t provide a notification icon next to the team to help you identify which team sent you an option. The trade option is based around making phone calls to the other team’s general managers. I guess the idea of performing and completing trades via e-mail still doesn’t exist in the NFL.

Even though the interface can be offensive to some the amount of options you’re in charge of is very impressive. You can create new plays on both the offensive and defensive side of the ball. Want to trade your star player for the first pick in the draft? Not a problem. What about cut the best player you have just to sign a hot young rookie? Do not think twice, except for the hit on your salary cap. Want to hire actual head coaches for teams in the real NFL as your assistant coaches? Go ahead and splurge. How about getting fired for not performing up to the owner’s expectation? Well that can happen too if you’re not careful. If only the game wasn’t so strict in keeping you on specific schedule in how you ran the team.

Another big difference between NFL Head Coach and Madden is how you “play” a football game. In Madden you have full control over how your player runs, catches the ball, moves, etc. While in NFL Head Coach you’re limited to just calling the plays from the sidelines. Once you’ve selected a play you then sit back and watch your team execute the play. For the hardcore Madden fans I’m sure this will be a huge sore point but it just adds to the experience of playing the role of a coach. You have to let your players play the game. You can spend hours upon hours practicing each play over and over again before the season begins just to get your team prepared. The more practice, the better each player will become, which - of course - increases the overall skill of your team.

Even during an actual game you can still spend time performing other tasks besides calling the plays. If you want you can talk to individual players or a group of players on the sideline and offer motivation to them. The motivation is limited to just a couple of choices but it’s still an interesting option.  The game includes a support ability for your coordinators to call the plays for you in case you’re too busy talking to the players on the sidelines. But this brings up a point that some head coaches never call the plays for their team because it’s the job of the offensive or defensive coordinator. This would have been a nice option to include in the game. Another unique feature is the ability to select plays by speaking into your Xbox Live Headset. There is even a special edition headset coming out that looks just like the headsets worn by NFL head coaches.

In the end I would say that NFL Head Coach is a great start to what should be another successful football series. It’s hard to go back and play the first Madden game from years ago. It might be the same for the first edition of NFL Head Coach if the game continues on in the coming years. The clunky interface is the biggest problem with the game because it limits your choices. If I’m the head coach of a NFL team I should be able to do whatever I want, when I want when it comes to my coaching decisions. Removing these barriers would have benefited the game tremendously. But the incredible amount of options available in the game will keep hardcore football fans busy for hours. Oh one last item, as of this writing NFL Head Coach is NOT backwards compatible on the Xbox 360.

Gameplay: 7.2
A smoother interface would have bumped this score up at least another point. But for a first try it’s an annoying success.

Graphics: 7.0
Staring at your coach’s likeness isn’t a fun experience after the first few hours of gameplay. Thankfully the graphics of the actual NFL are as top notch as any Madden game on the Xbox.

Sound: 6.0
There really isn’t a specific soundtrack included in the game that stands out. You get the orchestrated music usually heard in the NFL Film’s documentaries. The game does include different voices for your coach, the owner and your assistant coaches. But the wording if very limited to just a few short phrases.  

Difficulty: Easy/Medium
Make sure you spend some quality time getting used to the in’s and out’s of the interface. The choices made by the AI were questionable at times, such as during drafting and trade options.

Concept: 8.3
You finally get to see what a coach really has to go through when putting together a team. This is a great concept that hopefully will improve each year just like the Madden series.

Multiplayer: 8.0
The usual Xbox Live multiplayer is included in NFL Head Coach. The game includes Ranked Matches and Unranked Matches (Quick Match and Opti Match). But just like the single player game you’re only selecting which play your team will execute.

Overall: 7.3
If you ever thought Madden just wasn’t “Sim” enough for you then you’re the guy/gal that EA wants to try NFL Head Coach. Or if you’ve always plays the franchise mode several times through on each Madden game then Head Coach is the game for you. Get used to the interface and you will find a very deep game that should give you a new respect for the job of a NFL Head Coach.