Real Life is Stranger Than Fiction

Just as Mason Crosby’s kick sailed wide right, ensuring the Green Bay Packers a second consecutive soul-sucking loss, I couldn’t help but think, ‘This is all Brett Favre’s fault.’

We were only weeks removed from the bizarre revelation that the Jettisoned Packers great had called up the Lions to offer them game prep prior to Week 2. Favre first denied the report via text message, then essentially admitted all of the material facts from the original story were true. The guy was bitter, he went out of his way to help another team beat the Packers. Of course, his attempt failed and the Lions still lost, but it makes you wonder.

I was filing out of LP Field following the Packers’ overtime loss to the Titans last week when it occurred to me.

“Brett Favre is friends with Craig Hentrick, the Titans’ punter,” I told my Dad. “Surely he told Hentrich, who told Titans defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz, who told his secondary to watch for the go-route on that Aaron Rodgers interception in the end zone.”

My Dad wasn’t buying it, but I’m still convinced. Fast-forward to this week’s loss to the Vikings. Favre has various Minnesota friends, kicker Ryan Longwell, safety Darren Sharper, offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell. Favre could have relayed to any of those three to expect a lame running play out of the I-formation, which Packers coach Mike McCarthy used not once but twice on the ill-fated final drive. It’s all Brett Favre’s fault every time the Packers lose. Not the dainty defensive line giving up 10 yards a carry. Not the swiss cheese offensive line blocking the Vikes front like a group of blind men. Brett Favre. Even if no other evidence comes out of Favre needlessly helping other teams gameplan for the Packers, the story still resonates as the weirdest of the year. Goodbye Patriots Spy Gate, hello Brett Favre Lie Gate.

Now the question becomes how will EA Sports incorporate such oddities into their programming for future Madden games? Is there any way for designers to write a scenario into a game where bitter former players scheme and conspire against your team like a jealous ex-girlfriend? Imagine loading up a game and finding half your playbook gone because artificial intelligence Brett Favre has given it away to the Detroit Lions.

Hell hath no fury like a Brett Favre scorned

It doesn’t have to start and stop with that situation. EA ought to write in code where players go clinically insane like Mike Peterson in Jacksonville and get suspended for sassing coach Jack Del Rio. Or maybe a player misses a game for having a drug problem (Matt Jones). Would EA ever go super-reality on us and write in scenarios where players are killed during a game-season? After all, it’s happened. RIP Sean Taylor, Darrent Williams and others.

If Madden ever gets ramped up to the next level, then it needs to account for real-life happenings that intersect the game of football. Brett Favre is a case study in this. An addiction to pain killers, three MVP awards, a wife with cancer, a father who dies days before a Monday Night game, incessant talk of retirement, and now scheming against his former team like a dissed seventh-grade girl.

It’s all happened to Favre in real life. It would be a quantum leap forward for EA to live up to its, “If it’s in the game, it’s in the game” motto and program real life Favre-like surprises into next year’s game.