Madden PC Online Revisited: Best Of The 2000s

Madden PC online leagues were a big part of my teenage years during the 2000s. I spent hours playing in multiple leagues while running my own league called The Total Madden Show. I made more friends while feuding with players on Yahoo! Instant Messenger than I did during four years of high school. Don’t mistake that for sulking because as the Backstreet Boys sang, “I want it that way.”

Gaming was serious to me. That’s not to say that I didn’t take school seriously. I did enough to get most of my college marketing degree paid off through financial aid and scholarships. On top of school I helped the high school basketball team as a stat keeper and worked full time during the summer.

Before I Played Madden PC Online…

From Madden NFL ’94 to Madden NFL 2000, I played each game with the Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64. One of those games was Madden Football 64. This version of the game didn’t have the NFL license so the teams didn’t have their official logos. They were referred to by their city names such as Phoenix and Foxboro. It’s funny to see that a Washington Football Team was in a Madden game more than 20 years before they dropped the ‘Redskins’ name in 2020.

I’d go over to my friends’ houses to play them on the weekends. I thought that I was so great after beating them before their older siblings humbled me.

Why I Switched To Madden PC Online

Starting with Madden NFL 2001, I switched to the more expensive PC edition because it gave me the chance to play online. Online features weren’t on regular consoles until PlayStation 2 added it for Madden NFL 2003. I was tired of having to dumb myself down to play a competitive game against the computer. I wanted a greater challenge and more social interaction against human counterparts.

Computer upkeep was far more expensive than buying a console with some peripherals. A halfway decent desktop computer was about $1,000 whereas a console was $299 to $399. Then I had to upgrade the computer graphic card, RAM, and overpay for a controller. The controllers were a problem because they kept breaking. It wasn’t as if I could buy a new one online or at a local Walmart. I had to drive 40 minutes to CompUSA Nashville to get one. CompUSA was also where I purchased the Compaq computer that I used for most of my Madden PC gaming.

Costs be damned because I wanted to surround myself in an online community full of Madden geeks just like myself. I used the money I made as a data entry clerk at a roofing estimator office to pay for my expensive hobby, habit, addiction, or whatever you want to call it.

Why would I play the computer when I could play real people?

The Start Of Playing In Madden PC Leagues

My first computer was made out of a bunch of spare parts from a Hartsville, Tennessee radio station called WJKM-AM 1090. The motherboard fried within a year. That’s when I purchased the Compaq that lasted about four years. It was brutal trying to play Madden on that computer with a 56k connection. Younger readers won’t understand how bad 56k was. My dad told me that I ran up a $4,000 phone bill because I kept dialing into other countries for my Internet connection. I wish he kept that phone bill for proof.

I’d get home around five p.m. after school and sometimes a short stint at work. I spent the rest of the night playing Madden, editing a Tripod.com website for my league, doing homework, listening to music, chatting on Yahoo! Instant Messenger as i_m_totalmadden or lambeau_leap_2004, and sometimes watch a sports event on television.

Every now and then I’d change my instant messenger username just for fun. Now that I look back on it I’m sure that looked fishy to other people but I wasn’t ever hiding from anyone. I informed my followers when I transferred my contacts from one account to the next.

My Favorite Madden PC Online Leagues

There were three leagues and commissioners who I remember more than others.

• The Total Madden Show (TTMS): lambeau_leap_2004 (me)
• Playaz: kdog52173
• Jungle: romeshomey

It just so happens that The Jungle still has its website up after 20 years. It looks like something you’d see on the dark web today. There was an Owner Pics link that had the team logo and player photo of most of the 32 teams. Visit that at your own discretion because there are some “funny” pictures that people wouldn’t find funny today.

Most people will say this is the most pathetic thing ever but I think it’s awesome. The Internet was in its infancy stages so people were learning HTML just so they could run a Madden PC online league. Players emailed their game logs to the commissioner. They posted trades and free agent signings on ezboards. When EA Sports took the online franchise mode out after Madden NFL 2001, commissioners would simulate results offline then edit rosters to have some form of player progression.

The Jungle

The following was from Commissioner romeshomey and his experience as someone who played Madden PC gaming for longer than I had.

Until reading this I didn’t know that he started his Madden PC online gaming days with a 28k connection. I have no idea how anyone could play a multiplayer game on 28k. Eventually I had to upgrade from 56k to an overpriced 128k ISDN line because my opponents believed that my connection was too much of an advantage for me. There was no cable in the bare area that I lived.

The Jungle had a lot of good players. My team was the Carolina Panthers. I don’t remember if I joined that league at the start or later on. I know I took the Carolina Panthers in some leagues because nobody wanted them during their 7-9 and 1-15 days. The challenge of trying to win with the worst teams was intriguing. If I’m not mistaken, this was the league where my roster was so bad that I had to play Brian Urlacher at tight end. Before you ask, I traded for him.

I played romeshomey a few times throughout the years. He always used those 2000s Cleveland Browns teams with the horrible rosters while I’d usually have the Green Bay Packers or Panthers. More often than not he’d finish toward the bottom of the standings and I’d finish as a playoff team. That didn’t matter when we played because he beat me on multiple occasions. He just beat my ass.

The Total Madden Show

This was my league that I believe I ran for two years. I called it The Total Madden Show because I was a teenager who enjoyed The Eminem Show album and I didn’t want another league that ended with an “L.”

One of my two 32-team league Super Bowls happened when I used my Green Bay Packers to defeat michael_crow‘s (?) Denver Broncos in Madden NFL 2006. I traded Brett Favre so Aaron Rodgers was my starter. Normally I traded Favre because my game plan relied on short passes, dive running plays, and defense. Quarterbacks like Koy Detmer and Chad Pennington were good enough to win with.

Madden NFL 2006 was my favorite game from the series because I loved using the vision cone with my dink-and-dunk offense that focused on running backs, tight ends, and quick slants and hooks to wide receivers. I got a lot of people who cried “Cheese,” “cheater,” and “trainers” when they played that offense. I still have no idea what trainers are…

My best Madden PC gaming memory happened when playing a user named dan_merrit2001 or dan_merritt2001. He was the Chicago Bears. During one of our games he beat me like 69-20. I was in total shock as I almost never lose by double digits let alone 50. We met for a rematch in the NFC Championship. Down 24-10 with five minutes to go, I scored two touchdowns with one coming at about 18 seconds left to win 25-24. For what it’s worth, the two-pointer was converted after the first touchdown to make it 24-18.

The guy was a lot better than me but I got him that one time.

Playaz

I’d say this was the best run league that I was involved with. kdog52173 did a great job advancing the league in a timely and precise manner. He found good owners and kept up with technological advances that allowed for a better website and more fun experience.

I think this was the league where I took a Panthers team to the NFC Championship to face off against some undefeated dude. The game was tied with 35 seconds remaining and I’m at the opponent 35. I tried passing to an open receiver on a corner route downfield but his linebacker did one of those superman jumps to intercept it and return for a game-winning touchdown.

At the time I was so pissed. Today I can’t even remember most of the details.

Madden Ironies

I look back at playing in those games and recall how many people would label other players as cheesers. Cheesers are players who take advantage of artificial intelligence glitches to gain an unfair advantage. Some ways to get opponents to cry cheese were running too often with a mobile quarterback, throwing too often to the running back, box and jump passes to the tight end, playing too much shotgun offense or even something as simple as not running the football enough.

Isn’t it funny how most of the things that got people booted out of straight leagues are what we see in real football games today? All of these supposed cheese tactics were beatable. Some players were removed because they ran too much with Michael Vick. This was foolish because all you had to do was control the middle linebacker and use spy contain with the defensive ends. Sure it’s a pain in the butt to defend against a good player but it’s not cheese.

One Big Regret…

I treated Madden PC leagues the same as I treated fantasy baseball leagues and NCAA Football dynasties. I joined far too many leagues because I loved making roster moves with new teams. Some teams I’d do a rebuild with a lot of younger players while others I’d add Derrick Brooks with Peter Boulware and Ray Lewis. Those were three linebackers who were at least 96 overall. I still let nfltopgun run all over me with Fred Taylor in a playoff loss. There was one league where I had four wide receivers who were 90 overall or better.

After I made a ton of trades I’d get bored with the league and resign. I didn’t just do that with other leagues but I did it with my league. An older me would’ve committed to no more than three, maybe four leagues. I would join one league for each of my favorite teams (Packers and Tennessee Titans), one that gave me a challenge with a very bad team, and maybe one more.

I want to encourage anyone reading this to not do that in any league. It’s unfair to the managers and players who put so much time into it. It’s foolish to spend time on something and then quit just because you’re bored.

Madden PC Online Was Fun

I quit playing Madden PC online after I ditched my ISDN before Madden NFL 2007 was released. The last Madden that I frequently played was Madden NFL 2009. I played Madden NFL 2013 for a quick minute but that’s about it.

I’ve wanted to get back into Madden gaming for years but I hear the game is horrendous. At this point I may just do it for the social interaction with other users. I’m old enough to not take it nearly as seriously as I used to when I’d cuss out my television or computer every time my defensive back reacted foolishly to a pass. I’d love the game much more now because I’m so much more relaxed and nonchalant.

Is it bad that I miss my Yahoo! instant messenger list more than my high school class of 2005? I wonder how many of them still play Madden? vva_ash, uwillgetmocked, tornadoes4life, stallion_mac, playadlc, conigs55, ultra_defense, maximusthreat, steelerfan81, coalgrove_hornets, rhino4202001, xwreckingcrewx, anyone from Madden Planet, and everyone mentioned earlier in this blog.

Did You Play Madden PC Online Before Consoles Had Internet? Let Me Know In The Comments Below!