Oh man. If there was ever a game that was made for spectator mode it was my recent game against Fifty! That was a wild and crazy game, and due to my A button not working on an extra point it cost me to lose the game by one! Oh sweet irony. :lol That was probably the best back and forth game I've played all season. Statisically the game was close, and I did my best to control the clock because I didn't wanted the Colts offense to have as few runs as possible. In this respect I think I did pretty well at controlling the clock with mixing in running plays with short passes. That was my plan from the start and I executed it well on offense. I just had a few speedbumps hit me on the road. Here is what happened in our game.
1st Quarter) Fifty got the ball first. I made him go 3 and out on his first posession and he punted. On my first possesion I take a couple minute drive all the way down to his 20 yard line. On 3rd down I get sacked back at the 25 and am forced to go for a field goal. My kicker decided to hook the FG to the left and I miss a 42 yard FG! I should have known something was in the air then! :lol Fifty then proceeds to give James the ball and he scampers for a 58 yard TD on the next play. 7-0 Colts. On my next possesion I take the ball down 80 yards on a drive and score a TD. Game is tied at 7 end of the first quarter.
2nd Quarter) Get Fifty to punt and I get the ball back. I get a big gain by Holt down the field and get to his 15 yard line. On the next passing play the ball is incomplete and Bulger gets hit and is hurt. He ends up being out the rest of the 2nd quarter so I have to use Chandler!!
I end up having to kick a FG to go up 10-7. Fifty gets the ball back and on the 1st or second play gets a 70+ yard TD pass to Harrison. I play the safety on harrisons side all game and I crept up too close. Colts lead 14-10. We exchange a couple punts and Fifty pins me down at my own 5 yard line with about one minute forty left in the half. On the first play I run a counter draw up the middle, juke his safety, and scamper 95 yards for a TD! Rams back up 17-14. But I give manning too much time! Once again the Manning to Harrison combination burn me on another big bomb pass play and I'm down 21-17 at the half.
3rd Quarter) This is where the craziness begins. I get the ball first and thankfully Bulger is back. Unfortunately I can't do anything on m first drive so I punt. I get Fifty to punt the ball at my 40 yard line and he pins me down at the 2 yard line. On the first play I called a run to the weak side. Fifty decides to shift all his linebackers, CBS, and dbs to the strong side and I'm like, "Yes, this should be a good gain"! UNFORTUNATELY, after the ball is snapped Bulger runs right by Faulk and doesn't hand off the ball! :lol I'm dead to rights in the end zone with Bulger and get sacked for a safety. Colts up 23-17. I kick the ball back to Fifty and amazinly my defense stops him again. I get the ball back and get to midfield when it is 4th and 5 on the 49. I contempated punting but I was down by 6 and i didn't know how long my defense could hold out. So I went for it and got the first down! It turned out to be a great move as I ended up driving down the field and scoring a TD to tie it at 23! Now at the extra point, my A button stops working. I couldn't believe it! I kept on pressing A and nothing happened. I paused the game a couple times and switched controllers but I still couldn't kick the extra point! :lol The game then automatically puts the kicking meter on and I couldn't do anything so I shanked the extra point! On the following kickoff the A button worked fine! :lol
3rd quarter end tied at 23.
4th Quarter) Get Fifty to punt again, and I begin my drive. Once again Bulger gets hurt in the beginning of the 4th and was out the rest of the game. Get into FG position and kick a FG to go up 26-23. On Fifty's next possession Manning throws an INT at midfield which I return for a TD! Now I'm up 33-23. On Fifty's next possession after that he punts the ball back to me with 4 minutes left. I go on a two minute drive which culminates on me getting stopped on 3rd and goal with a minute fifty left. I kick a FG to go up 36-23. And thus is the beginning of my collapse. I started to play soft coverage to get the clock to run down, and Fifty drives his colts down to my 20 yard line where I play a bit tighter. I get him to 4th and 10 at my 20 yard line with a minute left. If I stop him here I win the game. He had two WR flanked out to his left with harrison by himself on the right. Like I mentioned before I usually play the safety on Harrisons side but for this play I was gonna switch out to the safety on the other side. I must have missed it because I ended up taking my safety on the right hand side and moving him to the left on that 4h and 10 play, and left the cornerback help wide open. Harrison TD 36-30 rams with one minute left. I made a mistake, but if I get the onside kick I win! Well, this didn't turn out to well for me. The onside kick goes between three of my guys and the ball shoots high into the air as my dumbasses sit there and watch it. As it comes down one of the Colts players runs inbetween and gets the ball! Colts recover! I gave Manning one shot too many as he connected with Harrison again on a big bomb to go up 37-36. I actually have 45 seconds left to mount one final score but I knew I was screwed. I had to rely on Chandlers arm to get me downfield and he ends up throwing an INT. Game over.
It was a crazy game. I did some great things like controlling the clock and running the ball. Unfortunately I made too many mistakes plus the madden gods struck down upon me once more on that extra point and safety! A game I should have won, but even after all the crazy stuff which happened I just needed to make one stop on 4th down or get that onside kick to win! So I put the blame on myself for not getting it done in the last two minutes!