Holy Aesop, John Madden's Still Alive!!!

After watching John Madden painfully attempt to be a sports broadcaster over the past few years before he drove his bus off into the sunset, it seemed that the universe had left him behind. Madden had become a caricature of himself, almost like the doddering old uncle that still thinks he is as sharp as he had been twenty years ago. While everyone else saw the decline, Madden never seemed cognisant of his depreciated skills.

Yet, Madden has just displayed a sign that he may be more on top of things than everyone had thought. While he appeared as though he was completely unaware that Eisenhower was no longer in the White House, let alone that football was not being played with leather helmets and quarterbacks may as well be wearing skirts for how often flags fly if someone sneezes near them, maybe his brain was in hibernation mode.

Showing a grasp on the reality of football, Madden has demanded, and gotten, a couple of significant changes in the Madden 2012 game. First, concussions are going to be treated as serious injuries. "Concussions are such a big thing, it has to be a big thing in the video game," Madden told The New York Times in a telephone interview. "It starts with young kids -- they start in video games. I think the osmosis is if you get a concussion, that's a serious thing and you shouldn't play. Or leading with the head that you want to eliminate. We want that message to be strong." To further this message, the announcers, Cris Collinsworth and Gus Johnson, will explain the severity and danger of a concussion when it is announced that the player will not return to the game.

Next, Madden 2012 will feature a greater emphasis on proper tackling. Helmet to helmet hits and head first tackling are going to be excluded, in an effort to make the game more of a tool to learn the proper way to play football for younger kids. The executive producer for Madden 2012, Phil Frazier, said that while it is not intended as a public service announcement, it is a means to educate younger kids to the dangers of concussions.

Good for Madden. More often than not, sports video games to not treat injuries with enough seriousness. Knowing that he still has enough left on the stick to realize that such things need to be paid attention to is a good thing for the video game industry, and for sports in general. Now if only the NFL meant it when they say they are trying to promote player safety, instead of just paying it lip service.